Tahki lunged out of the room. “Are you crazy? Why, why couldn’t you have just insisted you talk back at the castle? He probably think’s I’ve lost my mind.”
Sornjia sat at the table. “There’s something not right about him.”
“Don’t,” Tahki warned. “Don’t even start with me.” His eyes traveled to the order details. He picked up the paper and read it over. The contents of the list surprised him: Graphite, pyrite, magnetite, olivine, dundasite, bornite, augite, celsian, epidote, calcite, kaolinite, quartz, zippeite, vauxite, abernathyite, brookite, gummite, and at least a hundred more had been scrawled across several pieces of paper.
“I think you should leave it alone,” Sornjia said.
“Gale won’t be back until late. She won’t be able to deliver this until tomorrow.”
“Tahki, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t deliver the order yourself.”
“What makes you think I’d do that?”
“You have that look in your eye.” Sornjia leaned forward. “I know you want the people here to like you. You want to prove yourself.”
“We owe it to Gale for all she’s done for us,” Tahki said. “And yes, I’d like Dyraien to come to me for important tasks too. Is that so wrong? Gale said Dyraien never visits her. Ever. These order details must be crucial to our success.” He remembered how Dyraien had laughed at the idea Tahki might deliver the details himself. He wanted both Dyraien and Rye to trust him.
“Dyraien said he wanted Gale to deliver them. He seemed adamant about it,” Sornjia said.
“Because he trusts her. He doesn’t trust me.”
Sornjia sighed. “Why do you have to do everything yourself all the time?”
“That’s what being an adult is. It’s independence. It’s being able to do things on your own without help.” Tahki scooped up the money and stuffed the order details into his pocket. Before Sornjia had a chance to protest, or to foresee some dark thing in his future, Tahki was out the door, heading back to the castle.
TAHKI STRUGGLED to saddle a gingoat. Rye had shown him how, but it was still difficult. He rode fire camels back home, but the servants always prepared the animals for travel. It didn’t help that the creature fought with him now. Every time he walked around her front, she snapped at him. After twenty minutes of curses and struggling with leather, he managed to get on the animal and set off. A light drizzle fell, the fog bank in the distance a familiar sight. He hadn’t realized how vibrant the sands back home had looked. The castle here seemed to be caught in a perpetual drear. The road crept along the beach’s edge for miles. He would have gone faster, but even at a slow pace, the saddle bruised his rear and his hands blistered from holding the leather reins.
Three hours after he’d left the castle, Tahki rode into town, sore and thirsty. Boats bobbed up and down on the gray sea. The scent of fish attached itself to everything, so thick and pungent Tahki gagged. He didn’t understand how anyone could live in a town that reeked like this. Wooden buildings, most weathered by the salty air, closed in tight around him. They all looked scraped together with things that had washed up on shore or parts of other buildings that had been demolished. A series of wooden walkways and planks connected the buildings, as though the inhabitants expected the streets to flood. Steam rose from the cracked cobblestone street. Damp heads glanced up as he rode by. The townsfolk walked at an oppressively slow pace. They all looked so pale or red-faced. He hadn’t felt out of place at the capital, but here, he felt exposed. Men and women pulled their dark coats around them, like they wanted to blend into one another, like buying potatoes at the market was a crime. It felt odd to be among so many people again. So many dark eyes darting his way. Was it because he looked like a foreigner, or an easy target, or both?
He tried to avoid eye contact. The market looked so different from the one back home. There were no bright silks hung or merchants competing for his attention or cups of curry shoved in his face. Most of the stalls sold colorless fish. The largest shop sold shiny pistols, the only new-looking things in town. He rode close to one shop with wood planks over the windows. The sign outside read Jaraloine’s Brothel. The doors opened for a woman with a hood pulled close around her neck, and the rich scent of perfume stuck thick in his nose. He coaxed his gingoat to move faster.
He wasn’t sure where to go but saw a white arrow painted on the side of a building with the words Gambling House below it. It pointed down an alleyway. Dyraien had said Zinc owned a gambling house, and in a small town like this, how many of them could there be?
After dismounting, he found a place to hitch his gingoat. A few other mounts had been tethered to the pole. Then he made his way down the alley, the drizzle soaking him, his heart pounding a little faster than he would have liked. The gambling house wasn’t a shop, he discovered, but a series of underground tunnels that ran below the town like a mouse’s maze. He found the entrance near a sewage outlet by the beach. He smelled smoke and ale and another warm, salty scent he couldn’t place. The tunnel was made of stone and dirt. He swallowed and walked down the throat of the cave. It was lit by a series of green-glowing lightning roots that flickered with every gust of wind that swept behind him.
The first door he came to appeared on his right. He took a deep breath, felt in his pocket for the money and order details, and then knocked. The sensation to run overtook him. Maybe he could find Gale in town,
