Toria squeezed her eyes shut and tried to swallow the soot that clogged her throat, but the black dust refused to budge. She needed to cough or sneeze. The lamp light came no closer, but neither did it recede. Tears tracked their way down her cheeks and spots swam in her eyes with the need to breathe.
“Come in, Corwian. The shop’s closed, see?”
Toria ducked her head and retched, burying her face in her cloak, working to muffle the sound. Bile and vomit cleared the soot, but rough hands grabbed her and hauled her to her feet.
“What have we here? What might you be doing, sneaking around my shop?” A charcoal-stained face leered at her, the prominent nose running askew from the rest of the features. “You see, Willa? I told you there was someone in my shop.”
Toria listened, praying to hear the sound of grinding from the smithy. “Please,” she said. “I just needed a place to spend the night. I didn’t mean any harm.” Her eyes wide with fear, she looked to the smith’s wife in pleading and breathed a sigh of relief when the woman drew almost near enough to touch.
Corwian’s brows drew together over the wreck of his nose. His hands dug into her arms, pinning them to her side “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” A portion of the fog clouding his gaze lifted. “You were here offering me—”
Toria twisted in his grasp, working to bring her fingers to up to his wrists. There. She dropped into his mind and struck. An instant later she stood, Corwian dropping toward her. “Help me.” She worked to catch his weight, but the man weighed more than twice what she did. His bulk bore her down to the earthen floor of the shop.
She scrambled from beneath him to see Willa edging toward her with the lamp held forward, a poker in the other hand. “What did you do to him?”
Toria backed away, but the smith’s wife followed. “Your husband is fine.”
Willa charged, the poker swinging in a wide arc toward her head. Toria darted back out of range of the blow. Snarling her rage, the smith’s wife followed, reaching farther with each swing.
Toria waited, her hands shaking for the next strike. The poker came for her, whistling as Willa strived to reach her. She ducked, her hair ruffling with the displaced air and leapt, her hands extended.
Caught unaware, Willa stood flat-footed as Toria crashed into her, her hands closing on her head. In that instant she struck, disrupting the flow of memories that lay before her, but when she released the delve, pain lanced through her temple. Righting the fallen lamp, she reached up to finger the knot on her head. No blood stained her fingers, but the room swam as if it had been her memories that had been muddled.
Setting the fallen lamp on the table, she put it out and made for the door to the street.
The sound of grinding, punctuated by brief silences, still came from Isenbend’s shop. Of Fess, there was no sign. She circled around to come from the other side, where she might be able to see through the slits in the broad doors.
A hand grabbed her and she spun, her fingers groping.
“Quiet,” Fess said. “He’s nearly done grinding.”
“The smith came back and surprised me,” she said in the barest whisper.
He led her around to the north side of the shed, where a hole almost the size of her fist offered an unobstructed view of Isenbend and the fake cobbler, who watched his art. Several wraps of cloth covered his eyes. The grinding sounds had ceased, replaced by the sibilant buzz of steel against the polishing belt.
“He’ll see us,” Toria whispered.
Fess shook his head. “Don’t put your face against the hole. Leave space so that the light from his shop doesn’t fall across your skin. Even so, it’s unlikely he’ll look this way.”
Curiosity tugged at her. “Why?”
Amusement colored his response. “It’s something we learned in the urchins. Isenbend is right-handed and we’re standing on his left. Like most people, he searches for threats toward his dominant hand.
Isenbend polished the blade and the point for a bit longer before setting the handle through the eye of the tool head. Without flourish or conversation, he handed it to the cobbler.
“Have you succeeded?” the cobbler asked as he hefted the tool. “My master is impatient.”
The smith flexed hands as big as hams. “If your master had any sense, he could have used the money I spent on alloying agents to buy a dozen picks.”
The cobbler’s expression closed. “It’s as I told you, a normal tool won’t do. The rock is too hard.” He moved to the one side, the pickaxe gripped for an overhead blow. Instead of stopping him, Isenbend stepped back, wary. With a grunt of effort, the cobbler swung, bringing the sharpened pick of the tool down in a furious blow against the anvil. The ring that echoed through the smith’s shop brought a smile to the cobbler as he inspected the tool. “That’s one,” he said, rubbing his hand along a deep gouge in the anvil. “And it’s still sharp.”
He swung for a second time, and the ringing sound filled the shop once more. But this time it carried a note of complaint, an unintended dissonance that erased the cobbler’s smile. Yet the tool showed no flaws Toria could see. “That’s two. Once more.”
The cobbler adjusted the veil covering his eyes, set his feet, and swung. Instead of the ringing sound heard before, the retort of breaking metal shattered the air. Four inches broke from the end of the pick and went flying. The cobbler filled the air with curses as he spun and threw the broken pickaxe against the far wall, where it hit a rack of tools and sent them cascading to the floor.
Isenbend stood his ground. “You owe me payment.”
“I owe you nothing,” the cobbler spat. “It broke! After three swings against mere iron,
