Fairgoers crowded around a stone pool to eat and rest. Carts selling goosechik legs and meat horns and grape cider filled the first floor. The exhibits were on the second floor. Tahki wanted to stop and admire the structure, but then he noticed the guard had turned up the same staircase.
And he’d gotten closer.
Once upstairs, Tahki followed the red carpets to a room with a sign out front that read Transportation Design. Though he was eager to get to his table, one exhibit caught his eyes. A man named Thomisan Corrine had built a prototype he called a steam locomotive. It smelled like oil and grease and looked like someone had taken every kind of scrap metal they could find and mashed it together. Using something as common as steam to make something so great fascinated him. The sign said they’d be powering up the locomotive for a demonstration later. He’d read about Thomisan Corrine’s work and wanted to meet the man, maybe exchange design ideas.
He could have spent another hour examining the mechanism, but the guard entered the room, his eyes scanning the crowd until they found Tahki.
Tahki retreated. A sign for Conceptual Architecture pointed left, but he turned right instead, into the largest showroom labeled Weapon Advancement.
The guard followed.
Tahki stopped, pretended to lose his way, and then turned back the way he’d come.
The guard turned back too.
Tahki took a detour right.
The guard shadowed him.
He made a loop down the hallway.
So did the guard.
His heart pumped fast, and his palms started to sweat. Lightheadedness overtook him, and his stomach clenched. Finally, having nowhere else to go, he entered the room designated for architecture. In the center, a gold-and-teal globe the size of a carriage spun inside a fountain. He stopped at the fountain and pretended to sort out his papers.
The guard approached him.
Tahki felt heat rise to his face. His arms shook as he shuffled his papers.
“Pardon me,” the guard said in a gruff voice. It wasn’t a friendly greeting, more the kind of greeting someone says out of habit.
Tahki turned. “Me?”
“I need to see your documentation.” The guard was a stout man with curly black hair peeking out beneath a silver helmet. His lower lip jutted out a little too far, and he breathed in heavy gasps. He reminded Tahki of the fat dumb oxen back home.
Tahki considered running. He might be able to make it out of the atrium, but where would he go? He’d come so far. No half-witted guard would ruin his chance at fame.
He rummaged through his bag and shoved his documents into the guard’s thick hands. The guard scrutinized them, pulled out a pen, and made a few marks on a tablet he carried. For a brief moment, Tahki thought of the invasive way the servants had touched all his things when they cleaned out his room.
“Weather nice in Lapanrill?” the guard said.
“Nice enough.”
The guard grunted. “How long do you plan to stay in the capital city?”
“Three days. The duration of the fair.”
The guard squinted at him. “Your skin’s a little dark to come from such a cloudy country.”
“My parents are south islanders.”
“Lapanrill’s nicer than the islands, is it?”
“They pay better wages.”
The guard rubbed his tongue against his teeth and then gave Tahki a slow look up and down. The way his eyes lingered made Tahki feel dirty, like he needed to wash himself. His gut pinched. No one back home would dare look at him so pointedly. But there was something else behind the critical look. Something dangerous. Something that made him want to bolt from the room and get far away.
But then the guard pushed the documents back at his chest. “Lots of unwelcome foreigners try to sneak into the fair every year. Filthy birds, they are. Some steal designs. Others have been known to sabotage displays. You see any funny behavior, you come to me straight away, you hear?”
Tahki clenched his jaw. He couldn’t help but take the “filthy birds” comment personally. He felt the guard had singled him out because of his skin color.
Still, he managed a polite, tight-lipped smile. The guard gave him an indignant sniff and tromped away.
TAHKI’S LEGS stopped shaking from his encounter when he found an empty table to display his designs. The red-haired girl with too-glossy lips from registration took the table beside his. She didn’t seem so intimidating without her friends around, but when she looked at him with a repressed smile, he felt embarrassed. He shouldn’t have taken off the earrings. It only made things worse.
He tried to ignore her, but she inclined her head his way. For a moment she was quiet. Maybe seeing his designs would put her in her place. Tahki pretended not to watch. After a moment, she sat back in her chair.
“Nice designs,” she said in the same sarcastic tone as before.
There was a specific word for people like her in the Vatolok dialect. Tahki had used it once on a clumsy servant years ago and had been grounded for two weeks when his father heard. But he wouldn’t give in to her taunts again. He’d make her eat her words when he took first place.
Tahki arranged his designs on the table, being sure his signature was displayed proudly on each sheet. He’d used his first name but changed his last. Then he grabbed some kind of white bird meat from one of the vendors and gobbled it down. It was so bland he could barely taste it, like it had been boiled beyond recognition. He didn’t see a single vendor with any kind of spice rack. He also purchased a jug of strawberry carbonated water. Normally he didn’t like sweet things, but the fizz tickled his nose in a refreshing way. When he finished, he wanted to get another,
