Tanya sighed again. The damn thing seemed to like her.
Great.
Chapter
8
Within minutes Tanya got a paper cut. It was a deep slice, and in the shock of the moment, she fumbled with the quill, getting blood all over it as it dripped down her arm.
“Oh, come on,” Tanya moaned out load. Not only did it hurt, now she was covered in a disgusting mess she couldn’t clean up, chained down as she was.
Tanya hated not being able to clean a mess.
There was a sucking sound from the desk. Tanya looked down and saw that her blood was absorbing—disappearing—into the quill.
“That’s a thought,” she said, staring at the tidy little operation. She picked up the quill and a fresh piece of paper. She drew the outline of her bloody arm and then drew a little starburst labeled “Me.” The drawing was rough, but it was undeniably of an arm. She drew a quick dash to signify the cut. She drew a crude feather.
She wrote Blood spilled next to the paper cut and an arrow connecting it to the quill.
Tanya watched as the blood lifted off her skin and sleeve in a sheer, red vapor and settled into the quill like mist into the sea.
Soon, the quill felt fused to her fingers, feeding the cells there with energy and heat, so that even when Tanya was so tired that her brain was ready to turn off, her fingers urged her to keep going, to keep scratching out questions and lists, to keep flipping over new sheets of parchment.
To keep learning.
Under Tanya’s directions, the quill could not only make maps, it could also lay out interactive charts of the resources available in any given piece of the landscape. Very soon, Tanya had found, cut, and extracted a specimen the size of her fist from the ruby deposits in the caverns of Mount Beryl, a fog-enshrouded, rolling mass of rock near the north shore of the Smelt Sea.
She could have stopped there. Perhaps she should have stopped there. But that wasn’t all the quill did.
It started when Tanya came across a phrase she didn’t understand: “diatomaceous earth.” She searched her brain, but she was starting to realize that the stores of information she kept up there were limited at best.
Tanya had never truly been to school. Froud had taught her to read and write. She knew how to measure and how to make the accounts come out even. But she had never been taught anything that prepared her for life outside the Smiling Snake. She had never learned anything that wasn’t secondhand, picked up from a barfly.
Confronted by her own ignorance, Tanya thought about how she had discovered the quill’s mapmaking abilities in the first place. Licking the quill as she had done before, she wrote: What is diatomaceous earth?
The ink absorbed into the paper and then spat itself back out in the form of words:
A white- to light-colored powder that is produced by crushing the sedimentary rock known as diatomite. It can be used as a filler in building materials, as a filter, as a drying agent, an absorbent, and as a mild abrasive.
After that it was off to the races. Anytime Tanya encountered something new, she could ask a question: Is it safe for people to swim in the river around the Mount Lia Volcano? Does jasmine have medicinal properties? How many girls sailed on merchant ships out of the Western Ports last year?
Tanya didn’t like being a thief, but she did like learning. Which, come to think of it, was something of a surprise. Tanya hadn’t ever felt the need to learn anything the Snake couldn’t teach her. She never thought she would be able to use it.
Two days later, Riley entered the tent with a blanket and a clay jug, but stopped short and wrinkled his nose.
Tanya wrinkled hers right back. “I’m aware of the smell,” she said archly. “It happens when a girl is chained to a chair for several days and wears the same muddy dress for a week.”
Riley looked at the jug. “I was going to give you this beer,” he said, stepping closer to the desk. “But I don’t think I want to add that to the . . . um . . . bouquet.”
“Give me that.” Tanya grabbed it. She was thirsty. After taking a long gulp, she wiped her mouth and ordered him, “Tell the Tomcat that I require soap and a change of clothes.”
Riley gave her a warning look. “He doesn’t really like it when people make demands.”
Tanya smiled. She picked up the ruby and held it out. Riley’s eyes went wide. “Bring him this. We’ll see.”
Ninety seconds after Riley left her, the ruby in hand, the silent lackey was untying her legs and Tanya was free to stand, to stretch, to walk.
She stepped out of the tent and took a long, deep breath, letting the breeze brush the little hairs on her arms, feeling the skin around her chest and neck prickle. Then her nature asserted itself and she practically ran to the kitchen.
She found Lukas cleaning up a mass of broken china and Jana perched on the picnic table, munching an apple and laughing.
“I need soap,” Tanya announced. The two looked up at her in surprise. “What?” she asked. “Does soap not exist in this camp?”
Jana hopped off the table with wide eyes. “Where were they stashing you?” she asked.
“I was in the little tent near the Tomcat’s,” said Tanya. “Did you think I just disappeared into thin air?”
Jana kicked the ground. “I worried the Tomcat had sold your contract. Or that you had tried to escape. That would have . . . annoyed him.”
“You thought he had me killed?”
Jana looked up at her, quickly meeting her eyes, before shrugging and looking away. “I hoped not,” she said, tossing her hair in poorly feigned nonchalance. “But you never know.” Her eyes narrowed and she nodded at something behind Tanya. “What did you do to deserve them?”
Tanya whirled around. There were two men lurking several feet behind her, both covered in knives.
Tanya turned back to her. “I have to wash,” she said, ignoring the question. “If I have to have an armed guard, can’t it be you?”
Jana pulled her own blade from a sheath strapped around her hips. “Let me see what I can do,” she said, and walked toward the other guards.
One arm-wrestling victory later, Tanya stood neck deep in the river, enjoying the quiet. Just to the east of the camp, the river dipped into the woods, forming a roundish bowl of clear, still water. Tanya dipped her head back and squished her toes farther into the damp sand, letting the water flow over her closed eyes.
“You know that if you try to escape, I have to catch you, right?”
Tanya lifted her head. “What?”
Jana was sitting on a boulder, sharpening a knife on a flat red rock. “I wanted to warn you.” Jana smiled cheerfully. “Just because we’re friends doesn’t mean I won’t knock your head against a tree trunk if I have to.”
Tanya knew Jana to be perfectly serious. And yet, unaccountably charmed, she found herself smiling back.
Tanya kicked out her legs. She needed to move.
“Hey, Jana?” she said, looking around the bend in the river, where she saw a lily patch.
“What’s up?”
“Understanding that I’m both naked and fully cognizant of your threat of bodily harm—”
“Just stay in sight.”
Tanya blinked. “How did you know what I was going to ask?”
Jana shrugged. “You’ve been in a tent so small I didn’t notice it for five days. It’s tough for a strong person when they’re not allowed to move. I’ve been there.”
Tanya shivered at the implications, visions of the firepits of Bloodstone dancing in her head. She plunged her head into the water and stretched out her arms, propelling herself through the river with one sharp kick. By the time she emerged into the sunshine, she was deep in the center of the lily patch.
If she turned around, she could just see Jana through the trees, still perched on her boulder. She waved and, squinting, saw the other girl give a slight nod.
“Shhhhhhh.”
Tanya turned her head. There was no one there. There were just the lilies
and a few scrubby trees stubbornly clinging to life in the sandy soil.
“Shhhhh. Shhhhh.”
Tanya kicked around, whipping to look at the other, equally empty side of the riverbed. A robin poking at a lavender plant was the only sign of animation. “I’m sorry, did a bird just shush me?” she asked.
The robin exploded into a cloud of feathers. Tanya screamed and ducked back underwater.
When she came back up for air, the bird was gone. In its place was a hawk-nosed boy about her own age, still waiting for his last growth spurt. His gray scholar’s robe drowned him, puddling around his wrists and ankles.
“Who are you?” she asked, just as he asked, “Where’s my quill?”
“Your quill? Wait a minute,” said Tanya, studying his face, his beautifully woven but plain gray robe, the delicate points of his shoulder blades poking through the cloth. “I’ve seen you before. You’re that little scholar who nearly ran me off the road in Ironhearth.”
The boy sniffed. “I’m older than you are, madam.”
She snorted. “Maybe, but for your all your education, clearly no one’s ever taught you how to hem.” She treaded water until she was a little closer. “Did you follow me from Ironhearth?”
“No. I followed her.” He nodded in Jana’s direction.
“Because you thought she had the quill.” Tanya started moving the pieces around in her head. “And she didn’t catch you because you were disguised as a bird. Hey, what kind of scholar are you, anyway?” she asked, suddenly suspicious. “I didn’t recognize the sigil on your hat.”
Still looking away from her, the boy drew himself up to his full height. “I am a senior apprentice of the Royal College of Aetherical Manipulation.”
“Oh wonderful,” she sighed. “You’re one of those amateurs.”
“Excuse me, I am not,” he said hotly. “I am diametrically opposed to those amateurs mucking up the aetherical field. That quill is ours.”
“Oh, I see. Just because you imagine yourself particularly fancy magic users, you think you get to have it!”
“No, we get to have it because one of our scholars made it!”
Tanya still had her mouth open, the better to spit out a quick retort, but shut it when her tongue stalled out.
The boy scholar seemed pleased by this outcome, because he allowed himself a grim smile. “That quill has the power to change the world and that power belongs with me—I mean, us. The scholars. The Royal College of Aetherical Manipulation.”
Tanya raised an eyebrow. Something wasn’t adding up. “The Royal College. So aren’t you owned by the Queen and Council?”
“We were commissioned by the Queen and her Council as a public good, but our work is independent and without jurisdiction.”
“Tanya, I’m hungry!” Jana called out. “Let’s go!”
She turned toward Jana. “Be right there,” she called back.
The boy scrambled toward her on the riverbank, reaching out for her, grappling for the prize. “Give me the quill,” he urged.
She gave him a withering glance. “I don’t have it on me. I’m taking a bath.”
The boy furrowed his eyes in concentration and feathers started to poke through his robe, jumping into existence like popcorn on a stovetop.
“Tonight then. Behind your tent,” he said, his voice weak and reedy. He coughed out a scrap of birdsong and when he lifted his hand to his mouth, three of his fingers had been replaced by thin, scaly talons.
“Tanya, now!” ordered Jana.
“Fine!” yelled Tanya, and ducked underwater, swimming hard, leaving the boy/bird squawking behind her. She eventually resurfaced on the other side of the riverbend. Jana was stretching on her rock and a bird was flying overhead.
Tanya looked at the boulder where she had laid her dress to dry, but it was empty.
“I cut it up into scraps.” Jana held up a tidy ribbon made up of Tanya’s dress—her only dress, since she’d lost her luggage in the flight from Ironhearth.
“No good for traveling,” said Jana nonchalantly, pocketing the rags. “Might work for bandages though, now that it’s clean. I brought you something of mine to wear.”
Tanya eyed the other girl, who was clad in tight leather. She doubted that she would be able to cram herself into such an outfit.
Luckily, it seemed that Jana had taken that into account. The pants were a wide-legged and loose gray muslin, cinched at the waist with a drawstring. The blouse, brown and made of canvas, was a little bit tighter, but after Tanya had donned the plain white shift it was folded with, she found that she could loosen the laces on top without sacrificing any modesty.
She put her hands on her waist, where it was tightest.
“It’s good to be snug there.” Jana had come up behind her. “It keeps you upright and alert. I got you this belt, too.” She held out a wide swath of black leather, bookended by tarnished brass buckles. “Here, let me help. The snaps can be a bit tricky.”
Jana wrapped the leather around her waist. Tanya felt her fingers through the blouse as a soft, insistent tickle. It pinged a strange answering pang in her abdomen. She had never so much as had someone button her cuff or braid her hair before. There had never been anyone to do it. And now this strange girl, who the first time they had met had held her at sword-point, was carefully fastening her belt.
Tanya turned around and met the other girl’s eyes. “Now you look like a proper road thief,” said Jana, smiling. Tanya felt herself smile back without having to remind herself to.
“Look at you!” exclaimed a male voice behind them. “Jana, what have you done?”
Tanya turned to face Riley and Jana’s hands fell away. His arms were crossed and his smile sweet, and that ping in her stomach kept humming.
Tanya put her hand on her hip and posed. “Don’t like my new look, horse thief?” she asked, unfamiliarly good feelings suffusing her body.
He laughed. “Jana! She was respectable before. Now you’ve made her look like one of us!” He stepped forward and slung an arm around Jana’s shoulders. “Dinner’s ready. Hungry, ruffians?”
Jana, her cheeks rosy, punched him in the shoulder and ducked out from under his arm. “Always,” she said, throwing a backward glance at Tanya. “Don’t listen to him. You look natural as fleas,” she said before running off to the kitchen.
Tanya furrowed her brow. “Was that a compliment, do you think?” she asked Riley.
He looked her up and down, still smiling. “I’d imagine so,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her after Jana. “I particularly like the belt.”
Tanya let him hold her hand all the way to the kitchen. It was the longest anyone had ever touched her. Ever.
Chapter
9
After dinner, she made her way back to her tent.
It was a clear night, which, considering she was going to a clandestine meeting with a wizard, was bad luck. And the firepit in the center of camp was still blazing, throwing light everywhere. Anyone could see her creeping about.
She stepped into the tent and peered through the back flap, but something was blocking her vision. She frowned and pushed the flap back—
—and squealed as a fury of feathers and tiny, sharp claws careened into her face.
“Owww!” cried Tanya, batting away the increasingly frantic robin. The bird trilled back, equal parts indignant and panicked, as it flapped around her head, getting its claws tangled in her hair.
Tanya grabbed at the bird, in a futile attempt to extricate it. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Don’t you know how to use that body?”
The robin trilled in a manner that Tanya believed herself equal to interpreting. She sniffed primly and yanked her hair back once and for all. “Well, you don’t have to be rude about it,” she said.
The bird flapped its way to the ground and exploded in a burst of blue down, revealing a panting boy sprawled across the bedroll.
He glared at her and opened his mouth, but Tanya swiftly clasped her ha
nd over it.
“Don’t yell,” she said seriously. “There are armed thugs outside this tent and somehow I don’t think they would respect the rank of trainee magician, Royal College or no.”
The boy’s eyes flickered to the tent flap. He nodded and Tanya removed her hand.
When she did and stepped away, she revealed the quill lying on the desk: dormant but still eye-devouringly, glowingly white.
The boy and Tanya locked eyes and, for a moment, the world stood still. Then they both leapt forward, grabbing for the quill.
Tanya was nearer. She threw herself across the desk and scooped it up before the boy even hit his palms against the wood.
He snatched at the quill in her hand, but he wasn’t fast enough. Tanya had already tucked it between her breasts and he grabbed air.
“No one’s ever fast enough,” Tanya muttered.
The boy looked ready to cry with frustration. “What do you want with it, anyway?” he asked.
“I’m not keeping it to hurt you, boy.” Tanya picked through her pockets and found a currycomb, the kind meant to brush a horse. Well, it would at least help. “What’s your name, lad?” she asked in her kindest, firmest voice. The kind that made it a moot point that she was addressing a boy roughly her own age as “lad.”
He folded his arms. “Rollo,” he told her.
“Rollo.” She smiled at him. “You are covered in dust and feathers.” She tossed him the comb.
He caught it awkwardly against his chest and his lips curled in horror when he saw the state of his robe. This was clearly not a boy who liked to roll around in the dirt. How had he managed to turn himself into a bird, such a wild creature?
“You’re a little more presentable now,” she said as Rollo finished brushing himself off. “But that only solves one problem. We can’t leave this tent unobserved, so unless you can turn me into a squirrel or something”—she paused, remembering his skin bursting with feathers—“no, never mind, even if you believe yourself capable of doing it, I think I’ll take my chances with the Tomcat’s men.”
Wench Page 9
