I unspooled the charm, looping it around us as though tying us together with good fortune, forcing it to nestle into our cloaks.
“Now,” Alba said. She strode down the street as though she belonged there, absurdly, in the middle of the night in a silent Fenian city. I matched her stride if not her self-assured gait.
The guardsman saw us approach—we were impossible to miss—but didn’t shout or threaten. I breathed some relief; Alba’s bluff and the charm were working so far. I kept a tight handle on the charm in my right hand, clenching my fist into my skirt.
“Drats-kinda,” he said as we moved closer. Something like halt or who goes there, I guessed, but the delivery, though official, was not threatening. Still, the moonlight glinted off the blade of his halberd.
Alba prattled off a few lines in Fenian, which sounded to me like indecipherable Kvys. He nodded, then squinted at me. Alba chattered again, drawing his attention.
Still, he glanced back at me, eyes curious, searching. A Pellian woman in Fen—a curiosity, certainly. Perhaps more.
He quizzed Alba, questions tilting the cadence of his voice, his eyes still on me. Alba smiled broadly, and I intensified the charm. Luck for us, safety, swirling in a ring around us.
It wasn’t enough. I knew it wouldn’t be, as the guardsman kept scrutinizing us. Darkness built at the edges of the charm, the sparkling black deeper than the night. Curse magic. I hadn’t asked it here, but I wasn’t entirely surprised to see it, like an unwelcome but familiar acquaintance at the door. I pushed it back, keeping it carefully away from the pale glow of the charm, then pulled at it as though pulling yarn into a ball from a skein, looping and turning, but it fought me.
The charm had perhaps kept him from arresting us at once, but I sensed it was reaching its limits even as Alba remained calm and resolutely patient with the guard’s questions. I hesitated, then tied off the charm, letting it continue to pulse around us unbound. Out of my control and poorly anchored to the wool of our cloaks, it would quickly dissipate, but I turned my attention to moving the curse away from us, keeping those loose tendrils of darkness from encroaching on Alba and me.
I pushed the ball of curse magic away from Alba but, in my struggle to control it, cast it toward the guardsman instead. It collided with him like a blob of jelly enveloping a bit of toast, seeping into his greatcoat with tenuous hold on the fibers.
His eyes clouded, and his sharp questions ceased. Alba’s eyes snapped to me, widening. The guardsman began to speak, but his voice looped on itself, as though his mouth were full of overcooked porridge, and he tripped as he stepped toward us.
“Go,” I said to Alba. “Now.”
Her face blanched but impassive, she grabbed my arm and we ran toward the harbor. She navigated between warehouses and crates in teetering piles to a small office, more a shed of weather-beaten clapboard than a proper building. A shingle with a Fenian name and an anchor was nailed beside the door.
“Foolish girl!” she hissed. “Now they’ve all but proof you’re a caster—and casting curses beyond that!”
“We were going to be arrested,” I answered. “And I didn’t mean to use a curse.”
“Didn’t mean to?” She banged on the flimsy door. “For all the—How long will he stay muddled?”
I swallowed dry air. “I’ve never exactly experimented on humans before.”
“Then best to presume he’s already recovered his facilities.” She smacked the door with her open hand, growing, for the first time, visibly desperate. “Erdwin! Erdwin, get up!”
A frowsy-eyed, diminutive man answered the door moments later. He squinted at us, recognized in me a non-Fenian, and cursed in Galatine, “What in the depths of hell—oh, Alba!” He beamed. “Evenin’, dear. Fancy a drink?”
“Enough of that, Erdwin, move,” she ordered, shouldering him aside and yanking me through the door after her. “I’m going to need that favor now.”
9
ERDWIN TYSE WAS A FENIAN MERCHANT. HE REFERRED TO HIMSELF as a “private vessel operator.” Alba called him a mercenary. Either way, he had a ship headed for Galitha with space for us.
“A contract load of iron ore and shoes and various sundries for the glorious cause of Galitha,” he said as he showed Alba the ship’s license.
“Which glorious cause?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to us,” Alba replied. “We’re not exactly welcome in some ports.”
“The glorious Reformist cause,” he replied. “The common men and their Rebel Prince.” I winced—I didn’t like the term, which made Theodor sound more like a usurper than an adherent to the law. Alba shook her head at me. Erdwin hadn’t guessed who I was, and she preferred to keep it that way.
“Very good,” Alba said.
“She leaves tomorrow morning.” He raised his little finger as he sipped his tea laced with Fenian whiskey. “I take it you’re not precisely on the up-and-up with the local authorities?”
“Am I ever?” Alba winked. She tasted her tea, then added another splash of fire-like whiskey. “It’s nothing to concern yourself over.”
He laughed, then burst into a spate of coughing. “Do I want to know? Better you not tell me. Then when the Decency Police drag me up by the thumbs, I can solemnly swear I knew nothing about your underground brothel or gambling ring or the fifteen pounds of Equatorial dimweed you smuggled in—Creator above, don’t tell me you smuggled in dimweed.”
“I did not smuggle in dimweed.” She sipped her tea. “This is better than your usual swill.”
“I’ve been making good profits lately,” he replied, ever so slightly defensive.
“War increases your business, I suppose?” Alba set her cup down. “At any rate, best we board tonight. The Night Guard hasn’t come sniffing around down here yet, but at some point they may decide to make a search—”
“You miffed the Night Guard, too? Creator’s arthritic kneecaps, Alba.”
“It was unavoidable.”
“This one doesn’t talk much,” he said, switching subjects so abruptly that I sloshed a bit of tea onto my saucer. The porcelain was finer than I would have expected, with gaudy gold vines painted on it.
“She doesn’t have to talk to you,” Alba said. “Seems to me we learned that lesson last time I came here, didn’t we?” She drummed a finger on the scratched table. “Sastra Orvline still insists we should have levied charges.”
“I only talked,” he grumbled.
“And the courts would have believed that.” She shook her head. “It seems to me you tried to sell her shares in a ship that didn’t exist.”
“Speculation, Alba! Shares on speculation of a purchase!”
“I don’t think she saw it the same way. I didn’t report you for shoddy business practice, and you’re going to do me this one small favor.”
“Favor that could land me a ticket to the cliff colonies.”
Alba shrugged. “In your line of work, transportation is always a risk. Now. To the ship?”
Erdwin threw back the last of his tea, and we followed him into the wharf’s narrow alleys. His ship, moored in the middle of a long dock of small vessels, was a thick-masted schooner with a gull carved into the prow. “The Buoyant Gull,” he introduced her, smacking her thick sides with an open palm.