'What about the scarf? You were about to tell me something,' Krystin said.
'No. Like you said, it's not important.' Myrmeen sounded tired and defeated.
They continued through the marketplace in silence and soon allowed themselves to be separated by the crowd. Krystin did not object; even with Myrmeen beside her, she felt more alone than ever.
Krystin found a merchant selling tiny brass figurines. The statuettes were of elven folk. They were taken from a collection of stories that had been read to her by Madame Childress, the woman who had tended to the daily needs of Byrne's hunters at the estate. Krystin never knew if Childress was a Night Parade member or not. The woman had shown the children compassion and light, even as Byrne had embodied the shadows that always appeared to be watching them. Her memories of that place were vivid and overpowering.
'May I be of assistance?' a voice asked.
Krystin looked up to see a muscular, sun-baked blond man with a dark-haired child in his arms. The little girl he carried buried her face in his chest and took only a quick peek at Krystin. From the glimpse that Krystin had of the child, she could tell that the three-year-old would be a devastating beauty when she grew up.
'I was admiring your handiwork,' Krystin said.
The man laughed and hefted the girl into the air. He kissed her forehead. 'You see, my dear? I'm not the only one who thinks you're pretty.' The man looked back to Krystin. 'Or were you talking about my other handiwork, the ones on sale before you?'
Krystin smiled. 'Your daughter's very beautiful.'
The girl peeked out, chanced a slightly longer look at Krystin, then turned away and held on to her father for all she was worth. The man grinned.
'She's very shy,' he said. 'She's adopted.'
Krystin asked the man if he had ever heard of Malach Byrne or his daughter, Melaine.
'Yes, it is very sad,' he said. 'Malach secured his fortune in the wake of the great storm-he was a builder. The city needed builders at any cost. He was a good man, though a trifle vain. He lost his hair and insisted on wearing a wig to make himself look younger.'
The hair Melaine clutched to her breast, Krystin thought. The fact that she had not sliced it away from his cold flesh was comforting to Krystin.
'When did he die?' she asked.
'A year ago.'
Krystin flinched.
'His daughter was never found. They say she hides somewhere in his old house. New tenants do not stay long. They are certain the place is haunted. I saw poor Melaine once at the outskirts of town, picking through refuse for her evening meal. A poor, sad child, no longer sane.'
'A year,' Krystin repeated dully. In her memories, Byrne had been alive three weeks ago.
'Dear miss, forgive me for inflicting sadness upon you. There are happier subjects. My figurines, for example. Each comes with its own personal story, which I will tell you-'
'I have no gold, I'm sorry.'
The man smiled gently. 'If I did not need to feed my princess and keep the roof above our heads, I would gladly part with one of them for you.'
'No, you've given me all I need. I thank you.'
Krystin turned and left the merchant, waving good-bye to his retiring young daughter. She envied the girl the life of love and happiness that would stretch before her in the coming years, then realized that there were no guarantees in life. A totally unselfish thought, something that even she would admit was quite unusual for her, came in that instant:
May she always know happiness. Don't worry about me. Protect the girl.
She stopped in the marketplace and wondered if that had been a prayer to some god or another; if so, it had been her first. Perhaps exposure to Myrmeen and the Harpers was changing her after all.
Suddenly a glint of green fire caught her attention. She stopped and found herself captivated by a beautiful emerald pendant. The item hung from the fat arm of a dark-haired woman who had her own booth in the marketplace. Several other necklaces were displayed on the woman's pale, meaty forearm, but it was the emerald pendant that arrested the girl's attention. Upon closer examination she realized that it was a locket. As she stared at its polished surface, Krystin began to see images form. Suddenly the world fell away. She was no longer aware of the crowd surrounding her, of the suffocating shroud of voices that had hung upon her. For a single, precious moment, all that existed in the world was the locket.
Within its emerald depths, she suddenly knew, lay the answers that she so desperately sought. A face began to form as she stared at the locket, the face of the old man from her waking dreams.
'There you are,' a voice called.
The sounds of the crowd fell upon her like a wall of distress. She turned from the locket and saw Myrmeen standing before her with an expression of impatience.
'I thought I told you not to wander far,' Myrmeen said.
'Did you?' Krystin said absently, her gaze returning to the locket, which now held only a glimmering promise of the magic she had felt within it only seconds before. Hope seized up within her as she took Myrmeen's arm. 'Buy it for me.'
'What?'
'Please, Myrmeen.' She swallowed hard. 'Mother, if you like. The green locket. Buy it for me. You can afford it.'
'Let's get out of here,' Myrmeen said darkly.
'No,' Krystin wailed. 'You have more money than can be found in any temple in this city. Buy me the locket!'
Before them, the fat woman stared at the mother and her child with amusement. She shook her arm, making the chains rattle slightly. 'I like a customer who knows what she wants. Go on, buy her the locket. It's cheap.'
Myrmeen grabbed Krystin's arm and yanked her away from the booth, where the fat woman urged them to come back, offering to cut the price in half.
'Didn't you really look at it? It was dented and cracked,' Myrmeen said. 'If it's baubles you want, I'll give you a cartload when we get to Arabel. But for now we're low on gold and we can't squander it on cheap costume jewelry.'
Krystin looked over her shoulder. She was able to glimpse the locket for another moment, then the crowd intervened and the fat woman disappeared.
For the rest of the afternoon, Krystin lapsed into a sullen mood. Late that evening, when Myrmeen brought the evening's meal, Krystin refused to acknowledge her presence. Myrmeen set the tray down carelessly, the loud crash of steel plates and utensils causing Krystin to tense momentarily, then relax once again.
'Fine,' Myrmeen said. 'If you want to act like a child, then I might as well treat you like one. You can sleep in this room alone tonight. I'll make other provisions.' Myrmeen waited for a nasty retort. When none came, she frowned and left the room.
Several hours passed. When the hunger in the pit of her stomach became too overwhelming to be ignored, Krystin went to the tray and bit into the corns and meats that had been left for her, though they now were cold. In the gleaming metal of the picked-clean dish, Krystin saw the reflection of the room behind her. She thought of the terror that once sought her out in the darkness, the nightmares that until recently had come for her every night. They had gone away only when she had begun to sleep in Myrmeen's presence. Bringing a metal cup to her lips, Krystin drank deeply and was surprised by the pleasant surprise of peppermint bubbling in her mouth, a treat that she had told Myrmeen she treasured when she was a little girl.
Suddenly, out of fear and loneliness, Krystin began to sob. When her tears had run their course, she left her room and tried to find Myrmeen. She decided that she would tell the woman about the strange images that she had seen. Her memories seemed to be unraveling like a tapestry with a single thread that was slowly being pulled loose.
The door to Reisz's quarters was ajar and Krystin heard voices within.
'That's all that's left,' Reisz said.
