The man’s face looked ominous under the dim light. He wasn’t old, early thirties maybe, but he had a roughness about him that gave Tahki pause. His hair was shaved close on his head. The corners of his mouth pulled a little too far up his face. A series of white scars ran down his left arm. His tongue dodged in and out of his mouth as he spoke.
“You one of Jaraloine’s?” He spoke in a drawl, the kind of accent Tahki identified as southern Vatolok. “Because I asked for a girl.”
Tahki frowned. “Dyraien sent me. I have order details. I’m looking for Zinc.”
The man clicked his tongue and gave Tahki a slow look up and down. “D said he’d be sending Gale. You don’t look like a Gale.” The top buttons on his shirt were undone, and sweat gleamed off the black hairs along his chest. His neck looked thick and out of proportion with his body, and his jaw pointed a little too steeply.
“My name is Tahki. I’ve come in Gale’s place.”
“Tahki,” Zinc said. Tahki wished he hadn’t told him his name. He didn’t like the way it slithered through Zinc’s lips. “Sounds southern. Very southern, when you say it twice. Didn’t know D employed so far below the border.”
Tahki clenched his jaw. “Are you Zinc?”
“At your service.” His words sounded cold, unwelcoming.
Tahki shoved the paper toward him.
Zinc didn’t take them. “Snippy, ain’t you? Order’s in here.” He walked backward with a slight limp. Tahki hesitated and then followed. Once in the room, his insides clenched. He plunged his left hand into his pocket and touched his mother’s pencil for reassurance. He hadn’t felt this much apprehension since he’d crossed the border.
The room was as large as a tavern. No windows, just dirt and rock walls and a bar with dying lightning roots on the counter. Men and women in leather coats drank and smoked at circular tables, playing dice games and shuffling cards. Some of the tenants looked dazed, like they’d just woken from a long nap. They swayed in their seats or held their arms up to the ceiling. A woman sprawled her body across the floor. Another woman sat beside her and stroked her hair.
A child sat under one table, picking at a bowl of almonds. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Seeing her among the sweaty, drunk inhabitants gave him the sudden urge to grab her and run. Neither of them belonged here.
“This way,” Zinc said. He pulled back a dark curtain and Tahki stepped inside a smaller room. The walls were lined with material samples and minerals, some of which he knew were rare and illegal to mine. An old woman in ragged gray clothing shuffled over to them. She held out her hand.
“Order list,” Zinc said. He took a tin from his pocket and stuck a piece of what looked like brown tar in his mouth.
Tahki handed over the list. The old woman took it without a word, read it over, and then gathered samples from the wall. She handed them to Tahki along with a small chisel and hammer. He assumed she meant for him to check the quality. He tapped every sample, held one to his ear, smelled a few. He had no idea what he was doing, and for the first time since reading the order list, questioned why Dyraien would need these minerals.
“Nice, ain’t it?” Zinc said between chews. He gave Tahki a toothy brown grin.
“Yes, this is fine,” Tahki said. He tried to sound authoritative as he handed Zinc the money.
“Right, right,” Zinc said. “So you have two hundred notes here. That will get you about half your order.”
Tahki frowned. “Two hundred notes should cover everything.”
“Say again?”
“Dyraien gave me two hundred notes for the entire list, not half.”
Zinc cracked his neck from side to side. “You tryin’ to play me, kid?”
“What? No. No playing.” Tahki wished he hadn’t given him the money. Maybe Dyraien had made a mistake in his calculations.
Zinc spat a black glob on the floor. Some of it splattered on the old woman’s bare feet, but she didn’t seem to care. “You think I don’t know how to do math? D and I go way back. I know what he wants and how much he pays. I’m not the kind of man you want to ex-asberate.”
Tahki raised a brow. “Do you mean exasperate?”
“I know what I said.”
“Look, I’m not leaving until you honor my order,” Tahki said. Zinc clearly wasn’t very intelligent. He must have made some calculation error.
Zinc studied him and then threw his head back and smacked himself on the forehead in a dramatic fashion. “I get it. D didn’t tell you how this works.”
“How what works?”
Zinc moved close to him. Too close. His breath smelled like rotten fish as he exhaled in wet, hot waves. “D comes here all the time, buys some supplies and wins the rest.”
“Wins the rest?”
“Sure, sure. Everyone who comes here plays the game. It’s the only way we do business. D didn’t tell you? See, you take your two hundred notes, bet the money in the rings, win more. It’s the only way D can afford it. You know those slimy council bitches back at the capital actually limit his funds? If he withdraws too much, they become suspicious. And we don’t want them finding out about D’s poor mad mother, do we?” He cooed with a kind of forced patience, the veins on his neck sticking out a little as he spoke.
Tahki stared, stunned. Dyraien had said only Rye and Gale knew about the queen’s madness, no one else. Did that mean Zinc also knew about the project? He didn’t seem like the type of man Dyraien would trust.
“You look confused,” Zinc said with forced sympathy. “Here, let me show you.”
Zinc pushed Tahki through the curtain. He maneuvered him around the room, stepping over several people until they
