“Do you believe in a different future?” she asks.
“Definitely maybe,” I mutter. My skin itches. My fingers twitch. My stomach growls. I gave my last dukh to that lady yesterday, and I’m almost convinced that there aren’t any fish left in the sea. “I’m hungry, and I’m skint. I’m going to see a man about—” Before I can finish there’s a shout, a clatter, and then a wail.
A rangy man and a girl with a shaved head argue heatedly with an old lady. She clutches her cart as we approach. The guy takes one look at me, grabs something from the cart as the girl kicks it over, sending the woman to the muddy ground.
I shout, making chase, but I’m afraid to leave Kiki on her own. Not because I worry that she can’t handle herself, but because of the proximity of the ever-looming castle and the man who resides inside that I already kept her from once today.
Kiki’s expression dims as she crouches next to the woman. I straighten her cart.
The woman hisses, “I don’t want your help.” Filthy lines crease her face and black teeth fill her mouth.
Kiki says, “There’s a difference between want and need.”
“I don’t care about that either,” the lady says.
I take a step back, glancing around for the king’s patrol, ready to call us guilty for causing the scene. “We better get out of here,” I mutter.
Kiki is slow to move, as though rooted in the mud. Her glittering eyes implore the old woman to take her outstretched hand, but at the sound of a whistle, I clasp it and take off at a quick pace. A pair of patrolmen round the corner.
A tabber and a dowsy argue in front of a tavern and the guards stop to intervene, taking them off our tail.
Kiki, catching her breath, says, “You said the silver king turned the people against each other. The only way to get the people to listen is if they come together.”
I fail at forcing back a short laugh. She’s so utterly insistent, hopeful.
Her face darkens.
I gesture at the filth and squalor around us. “How do you propose we do that?”
“We do that by finding the ravens.”
Maybe she’s as loopy as the golden king was rumored to have gone. “Why? How? We can’t just stuff some birds in a bag and bring them back here.”
“No, of course not. But you asked why. Because the people were united under them. Because they were the last connection they have to the former king.” She hesitates. “It’s the only thing I can come up with. And you asked, how? You told me that the ravens retreated to the mountains. That’s where we’ll go. Maybe the golden raven can help us. Luckily, I know the way.”
I shake my head. “No, Kiki. Not the northern mountains.” I turn several degrees, lift my hand, and point at the dark, distant peaks. I lower my voice. “The Morgorthian Mountains.”
Lacking the sense of defeat I expect, she says, “How do we get there?”
“We don’t. The fire took all of the maps and sent the best guides to the outerlands.”
Her lips lift and her eyes sparkle. “We’ll start with the seer.”
“I don’t think her visions prove very helpful.”
“Let me rephrase. We’ll have a look at the tapestry on her wall. The one that concealed the exit to the alley.” She struts off, taking her smug smile with her.
Chapter 10
Ineke
Soren hastens to keep up with me. Feeling rather pleased with myself, I explain, “Did you notice the tapestry covering the secret exit?”
“It was hidden by veils and a haze of smoky incense,” Soren says as we pass an impossibly full wagon, overflowing with scraps of wood and pulled by an impossibly slim donkey.
For now, I ignore the electric surge I felt when I was helping the woman with her cart. I was overcome with a desire to freeze the guy like an icicle who knocked her down in the street. I take a deep breath. My karate practice was supposed to help me master my anger.
“The tapestry was also a map,” I say, recalling the way the light blue threads framed the jutting breakwater.
I was, and still am, so desperate to figure out where Raven’s Landing is relative to home, I couldn’t help but notice it.
“I don’t think the seer would be so bold as to hang a map outlining the outerlands on the wall of her stall.”
“Why not?” I ask.
He stops and throws his hands in the air. “It’s forbidden. Have you noticed anything with words or pictures on it in Raven’s Landing?”
“Only your skin,” I mumble.
“Every printed thing was burned in the fire. Even shop signs are just symbols.” I point. “And if not, the silver king destroyed it.”
“So no libraries or internet?”
“Not sure about the internet, sounds like a Terra thing, but no books period. Well, except the one I stole and then lost in a lousy wager.”
When we turn the next corner, I smell the singed scent of candles burning. Something shiny glints in the hardening mud as night falls. “It’s your lucky day,” I say, plucking a coin from the ground and passing it to Soren.
“That depends on your definition of luck. Tonight is Hallowtide.” He points to a display of candles outside a shop and trades the coin for a greasy brown parcel.
“Hallowtide?” I ask.
“It used to be the night to honor the dead and departed.” While Soren opens the greasy bag, he motions that we continue toward the Basin. He mutters and then passes me a chunk of dry bread.
I take a small bite and cringe, but hunger overpowers taste. “Is this the brown bread you speak so
