“But you left?”
“I was made to leave, yes.”
“Made to?”
Inney hesitated more than a moment. “Some… some people thought that I seemed strange. And I allowed myself to be noticed more than I ought have. It did not take long for mysterious happenings to be blamed on me. First missing fruit or stolen money, soon enough missing people or curious deaths.”
“And were you to blame for any of them?”
“Some.” Inney looked up at her, a half-frown on her false face.
“I’d have been disappointed if you’d said none.” Rianaire chuckled. “Still, were we all held guilty of the imaginings of the busy minded, there’d be a monster behind every smile. They seem to yearn like no other for a life more interesting than they’re brave enough to actually live.” She put a hand on Inney’s back. “What intrigues me, though, is that you say you allowed yourself to be noticed.”
“There…” Inney pulled in a deep breath. “It was the first time I thought I could find love. This face did not smile then. A desert elf. He was young and small. The son of a livestock man. I nearly killed him before I’d known him a week. He stuck to me as… as I stick to you, I suppose. I abused him with words as best I could but he would be at the tavern door every morning when I went for food. He followed me and wrote terrible poems and flowery letters. For three full seasons, every moment he could spare, until I finally spoke to him kindly. It was only a few weeks later that guards began showing themselves at the tavern, questioning anyone they could find who might know me.”
Inney stopped in the street and looked down at the ground, the smile on the mask she made for herself forced into place.
“He came to me in the night. Beaten and bruised, frantic. He asked me what I had done. Why had he been taken? I asked what he told them. He said there was nothing he could.” She drew another breath and let out an exhausted sigh. “He begged to know my secret. He swore he would understand, he said. And so I showed him. I showed him my face and he screamed. A girlish, terrified scream. And I put a dull knife in his neck to stop anyone from hearing it.”
Inney looked up at the sky, silent. Rianaire moved around behind her and wrapped Inney up in her arms. The narrow side street was empty and quiet, if only for the moment. Rianaire kissed Inney on the cheek and smiled.
“If you’d told me he was still alive after such a reaction, I’d have had him put to the gallows myself. The Fires are the only place for such a creature.”
Inney laughed. “It was a truly terrible sound.”
“I should expect so. A tiny boy writing bad poems? I took you for better than that, love.”
“I was young and foolish.”
“Young and hungry for the feel of a cock in you, more like.”
She laughed again and Rianaire grabbed her at the shoulders.
“Come,” Rianaire said. “It’s late, but if we can be done here all the sooner, we can fill that empty void in your loins.”
“I’d have been better off if I’d lied, wouldn’t I?” The complaint was a playful one. “So who is this man?”
They resumed their walk as Rianaire answered. “He oversees the docks. I doubt he is near the water this late, but I don’t intend to knock on each and every door until we’ve found him. And I’ll not ask Glae. Fetid little shite of a man. Like to beg for some favor with his opening breath.”
The area around the docks was still busy with activity, though only in small clusters. An elderly man was looking over some papers, comparing them against a series of boxes. Rianaire approached him. He turned at the sound of them and bowed his head slightly.
“What’s a couple o’ girls in finery doin’ ‘round the docks?”
“Tola. He runs the docks as I understand it.”
“Aye, he does. Not been here since half noon, I don’t reckon. Lives up the north side o’ town.”
Rianaire huffed. “Well, I was more out for the walk than anything. My thanks.”
“Sure enough. Pleasure’s mine.”
He turned back to his boxes and Rianaire turned to leave with Inney. The sun was low on the horizon, lighting the boardwalk around the bay orange and purple.
“Do you miss Casúr?” Rianaire asked, looking out over the bay.
“Only a fool would. For all my whimsy about the past, that’s something built of what my mind wishes it had been. Or what my mind wishes it could have been. I know the place of a half-Drow in the world outside my whims. Or what it should be.”
“So you feel you are an aberration?”
“No,” Inney said quietly. “I feel I am due to wake up. In a dank tavern with a pike’s point dug into my neck.”
Rianaire smiled. “Life is odd. Sisters know, it seems more ridiculous at times than even the wildest stories. But we underestimate life, is all. We expect the bland and the boring and leave all the fun to dreams. It’s a waste, I say.”
“Treorai!”
The words were elated and husky. Rianaire looked over to a shop front they were passing to see a bulbous man and his bulbous wife waddling at them with two massive fish held aloft.
“Treorai! Treorai! Oh! It is really you!”
The fish were shaking rhythmically as the man ran, his wife behind repeating a hooting noise and moving between various gestures, most of which involved touching her face or hair and looking awestruck.
“The
