Summernight

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  She was still shaking there, her head pounding and her nose on fire with the acidic scent of the place when Carnelian and a Master Kurond came out of the room and he began to lead them back through the corridors to a staircase.

  The Guild House walls were white plaster, uneven but clean. Metal twisted into interesting shapes served as art hung on the walls and heaps of tools and fragrant herbs and oily bottles lined shelves anywhere there was room to set them up.

  “Don’t mind the clutter,” the man said as he led them. He was fit for a man of his age – mid-forties – and he strode through the halls like a king in his castle. “Things seem more turbulent than usual with the Festival going on. You’re certain that Tamerlan has committed some crime?”

  “Not certain,” Carnelian said. “Not yet, at least. What we know is that the trail led us here and the man we saw looks like your apprentice.”

  Master Kurond wiggled his fingers impatiently – a man not used to waiting – and Carnelian handed him the charcoal sketch of his apprentice.

  “It does look like Tamerlan. Did he return to his bed last night, Dathan?” he called behind him. Marielle jumped at the sudden shout. She hadn’t realized that the dark-haired apprentice was still following them. He smelled of The Copper Tincture with a small hint of cranberry guilt.

  “No, Master Kurond,” Dathan said, his young face crinkling. “I’ve been worried, but I thought maybe he just had too much to drink.”

  Master Kurond waved a dismissive hand irritably. “He’s not a drinker, Tamerlan. Worth every penny I paid for him. He does his work conscientiously. He gets along with others. He’s well-mannered and well-groomed. He has an excellent memory and good deductive skills. Everything you would expect from a Landhold’s son and everything required in an Alchemist’s apprentice. With application, he could run his own Guild House someday.”

  They had reached a small door and already Marielle knew it was Tamerlan’s. The residue smell of magic poured from it in waves of turquoise and lilac and the golden vanilla-scented sparks danced like the tips of waves on the river under the noonday sun.

  The powerful, addictive sweet hot honey and cardamom scent filled her up like a cold drink of water on a hot day – the smell of the man she had run into on the street, all clean masculinity laced with tarragon and lavender, cinnamon and honey. It was lavender compassion mixed with orange pulsing desperation, a sparkle of flashing cleverness and a deep, throbbing strain of bronze hope rolling through the rest like a banner on the wind. It was too much.

  Everything inside her was drawn to it. Everything she knew told her that letting this anywhere close to her spelled disaster. She was not here to enjoy a scent. She was not here to fall in love.

  She was here to catch a master criminal – a thief of magic and a threat to her life.

  “Here’s his room,” Master Kurond said. “I doubt you’ll find much there. He doesn’t have many possessions.”

  He opened the door and Marielle pushed past Carnelian to be the first inside. Her partner crooked an eyebrow cynically and stayed by the door to speak to Master Kurond.

  “Bought from a Landhold, hmm? Any chance he might try to steal a boat to run back home?” she asked him.

  Marielle went over to the washstand. Nothing there. Just a simple comb and basin. The wardrobe held a single set of clothing – well worn – and a Lila Cherrylocks costume. Her heart sped up. Hadn’t the girl at the library claimed she had been attacked by a man in a Lila Cherrylocks costume?

  She pulled her scarf down and buried her nose in the folds of the costume, trying to get past the magic scent, and then trying not to be bowled over by Tamerlan’s enticing smell. But under all of that – yes! – there was a hint of books and seaside winds. Dust and stamps and vellum. It was the smell of the Library District.

  “I doubt he would,” Master Kurond said. “He had opportunities here. Memories there – but none good unless I miss my guess.”

  “Any other reason he might have to attack two guards and steal a gondola?” Carnelian asked.

  By the fireplace, Marielle noticed a mortar and pestle. They were empty. The fire grate was a different matter. Most grates were clean in mid-summer awaiting use when the weather turned cold again. This grate had a fire in it recently.

  “A gondola?” Master Kurond sounded surprised. “He’d have no use for that. The guild will pay for a gondola if that’s necessary.”

  “And the guards?” Carnelian pressed. “Any reason to attack them out of nowhere?”

  Despite her light-headedness from the heavy magic smell – heavier here at the fire grate – Marielle could smell the smoke. Strange. That wasn’t just wood smoke. There were herbs and other things in there. Was that orrisleaf? She hadn’t smelled that in a long time. And a little aniseed. She shivered. He’d led her to an aniseed shipment when he’d wanted to overwhelm her before. And now here it was thick and heavy in the air. Interesting.

  “Depends on what they were doing,” Dathan said from where he stood out of Marielle’s sight.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Carnelian asked with a warning note in her voice. The boy had better shut up. Carnelian was spoiling for a fight.

  “He’s soft-hearted. If they were hurting someone or being unfair... ” his voice trailed off.

  “I think you have things to attend to, Dathan,” Master Kurond said carefully.

  Marielle ignored them, studying the room while she could.

  The golden scent of Tamerlan was strongest on his bed. She sat on it, letting his scent fill her up and feeling just a hint of guilt at how much she liked it. She would recognize it now anywhere she went. Even the smallest trace and she would know it was him. She spread her hands out over the blanket, fingers spread, breathing in every last trace of him – a whirl of color and scent and emotion stronger than anything she’d ever felt – stronger even than the addictive smell of the magic.

  Carnelian and Master Kurond were still talking and she wasn’t listening to a single word. Her mind was popping and fizzling with a scent so overpoweringly right that it made everything else in the world feel wrong. She wanted more. She would follow that scent anywhere.

  Stop, Marielle! You are a Jingen Watch Officer, not a girl with her hair up for the first time!

  Something crinkled under her palm. She pulled the blanket back. A small page of paper was there. Carefully, she tucked it behind her belt. She’d look at it later.

  “Got his scent?” Carnelian asked.

  “Yes,” Marielle said, feeling like she was lying. Did she have his scent? Could you keep the wind captive? Could you nail down the sun? Could you hold back the years and unwind the hours? Could you make what was outside you come inside and what was inside come out? She had his scent like you had a memory – not nearly as powerful as you wished it to be and fainter the more you grasped for it.

  “Then we’ll go for now. Tell us if he returns,” Carnelian said as they left.

  It was all Marielle could do not to stay. The scent called to her as she followed Carnelian, but tucked away in her belt was something just as interesting – the folded piece of paper. Perhaps it would be what she needed to find this Tamerlan and prevent him from stopping the Summernight sacrifice before it was too late.

  Because no matter how addictive his smell was and no matter how compelling the trust of his friends or his story of being sold into apprenticeship was, if the Lord Mythos was right about Tamerlan and he really did want to stop the death of the Lady Sacrifice, then Marielle was the one who would be sacrificed tomorrow night.

  She shivered.

  There was nowhere to run from that and no way to hide.

  21: Queen Mer’s Son

  Tamerlan

  TAMERLAN AWOKE HUDDLED in the bow of the sleek little gondola. Waves rocked the boat with an almost comforting motion. It defied his troubled heart and tangled emotions. What sort of world was it where simple things like the motion of water could feel so good when everything else about life hurt like a s
hard of glass wedged in your flesh? Every thought tore at that shard, tugging against the wound and shooting jagged throbs of pain through him like waves of fire.

  He was running out of time. And he’d almost been caught. What if Byron had slipped from his mind even a minute sooner? What if he had done something even wilder than saving the boat of a kid? He’d smoked the recipe in the hopes of finding aid for his sister, but there was no controlling the Legends. There was no way to determine what they did when they arrived or how they did it. Byron had been willing to help, but he hadn’t been able to pass up the chance to help someone else, too. Lila had been willing to help, too – for a price. And both times had been just too short for what he’d needed.

  Maybe that was the key. Maybe he needed to smoke a deeper, greater lungful – or several lungfuls. What he needed was to have them take over his body for longer. And he needed the Legend who came to be Lila Cherrylocks. She was the one with the ability to break into things and she could be reasoned with. At least a little.

  “What you gonna do now, boy?”

  Tamerlan startled as the boy sat up from the stern of the gondola, blinking at him in the growing morning light. Was he really calling Tamerlan ‘boy’? The kid was fourteen if he was a day. Maybe fifteen if he was a slight fifteen.

  “You burned your boat to ash last night, boy.”

  Tamerlan blinked at his rapid speech. He’d dealt with gondoliers before. He’d seen Wavereunners from afar. But he’d never really talked with them for long and the boy’s rapid speech – intonations different from what Tamerlan was used to – was not what he was accustomed to. He squinted, concentrating at the next burst of rapid-fire speech.

  “You’re not welcome back on land, boy. You don’t have your own boat. You don’t have a future. No Jingen for you. Where will you go? Where are your people?”

  “I don’t have people,” Tamerlan said quietly, realizing it was true. When the guild found out what he’d done he wouldn’t be welcome there. They’d cut their loss with him and buy a new apprentice. And his family had sold him. He wasn’t ever going back home again. “Where did you get this boat?”

  The boy grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. “This boat is mine. All mine. I designed it. I built it. My home.”

  “You built this? It looks different from other gondolas.”

  He nodded sagely. “Faster. Sleeker. Smaller. ‘No good for houseboat’ they say. ‘No good for passengers’ they say. Who says I want passengers? Who says I want a house? I want to be fast. I was fast last night.”

  “You were very fast,” Tamerlan agreed, standing up in the boat.

  Around them, the other people under the bridge began to stir. They’d tied the gondola to a line hanging down from the Spine Bridge at the west end of the city. It linked the Alchemist and Artificer Districts for traffic that didn’t move well on barges or gondolas. During the days, it was filled with stinking carts, stomping horses and angry drivers. At night, the lamps along it were lit and traffic was mainly carriages or foot traffic.

  They’d found it easily in the dark of night, joining hundreds of others who lurked under the bridge – small boats tied to hanging lines, and hundreds of hammocks, some huge woven baskets that made small huts dangling on ropes from under the bridge.

  The sounds of people waking and rolling up hammocks filled the air.

  “I didn’t know this place existed.”

  “You never see the bridge before?” the kid gave him a long look, twisting his mouth like he was speaking to an idiot.

  “I’ve seen the Spine Bridge. I just didn’t know that people lived under it at night.”

  “You don’t know much, boy.”

  “I think I might be older than you,” Tamerlan said mildly. “And my name is Tamerlan.”

  “Names are earned,” the boy said. “Why did you save the boat last night?”

  “Did you want it to sink?” Tamerlan asked. He was beginning to like the boy. He was less shaken by the night before than Tamerlan was, and yet he didn’t seem to have any family or friends to rely on. It was just him and his little craft.

  “Fool. Boat sinks, I die. There was no room on the other boat. And if I leave the boats, I die.”

  “What do you mean?” Tamerlan asked. “Because your people won’t let you return to the boats? You could still live on the streets.”

  “Nothing away from the water is real,” the boy said, rolling his eyes. “You leave the boat, you join the dead.”

  “I’m real,” Tamerlan said.

  “You see yourself last night? You were like a spirit of the dead springing up. You tore through the enemy like a demon of the night. I think maybe you’re only real now because you slept on the boat all night.”

  The kid rummaged through a cloth bag that had been hidden under a panel at the back of the boat. He pulled out a tunic that was slightly less grimy than his pants quickly pulled it over his head. His thin body was crisscrossed with scars. Tamerlan felt a tug at the sight. He knew what those felt like.

  “That’s a theory, alright,” Tamerlan said. And in fairness, he hadn’t felt very real the last few nights. And he wasn’t even sure what real was anymore. He could have sworn he dreamed of Lila Cherrylocks last night. But he didn’t know if it was a dream of if he had really heard her laughing at him in his mind.

  “So, where will you go now, boy?” The boy was tucking his cloth bag back into the recesses of the hidden panel.

  Tamerlan clenched his teeth, thinking. Where did he go, now? He had to try again. He’d have to go back to the Guild House and see if he could grab some of his things there. And he needed more ingredients. Those he could get around the city today if he was careful. If he wasn’t seen or caught.

  He had to hope that Master Kurond didn’t know he was in trouble with the law. If the Alchemists knew and they found him first, they’d punish him in their own way before they gave him to the City Watch. He flinched at the thought of the acid they used to etch a mark of shame on the backs of the hands. He’d seen that before. Old Jand who hauled waste from the Guild House was marked like that. He’d been caught stealing from the Guild. And that would only be the beginning. Worse, their punishments would take time and time was the one thing he didn’t have.

  “If I haven’t earned your name, is there something I can call you until I do,” he asked the boy. “It feels disrespectful to call you ‘boy.’”

  The boy snorted. “You can call me Jhinn, boy.”

  Tamerlan bowed respectfully. He might not be a Landhold anymore, but if being sold had taught him one thing, it was that all people preferred to be treated with dignity.

  “Do you know a place where we could hide a few things, Jhinn?”

  Jhinn grinned. “For a price, maybe.”

  “Okay, for a price.”

  Jhinn gestured at the line hanging from the bridge. “Untie the boat. We’ll talk price while we go.”

  Tamerlan untied the boat, his mind on the list he was forming of where he could go to buy or steal the items he was going to need to smoke again. He’d need a lot of them. He’d need to stockpile. If it mattered how much he actually breathed in, then next time he needed to breathe in as much as possible and he needed to keep on doing it until he got what he needed. And for that, he was going to need a lot of spices and a place to keep them.

  “It needs to be somewhere that I can store a lot of things,” Tamerlan said.

  “Valuable things?” Jhinn asked.

  “To me.”

  “Ten percent. You keep them in my place. I get ten percent.”

  Maybe he wasn’t as young as he looked.

  As they skimmed along the morning water watching the white river birds fishing along the edges of the reed clumps, their long legs scissoring through the water, Tamerlan let the cool morning breeze and the warmth of the sun on his face lull him for a moment.

  It would be okay. He just needed to change his plans and adapt. He hadn’t lost his chance. Next time, he would smoke a lot and next ti
me, he would get a better Legend for the job.

  And now he had an ally. Sort of.

  And that was something, wasn’t it?

  Summernight Eve

  (Fourth Night of Summernight)

  22: To Catch a Law Breaker

  Marielle

  MARIELLE SHIFTED ON the three-legged stool. It was hard to stay still when the scents slipping in through the window were so enticing.

  Oranges and sweet buns, roast pork and sweet peppers, fried cakes and puffy pastries – every mouth-watering food you could buy in the nearby streets and inns were there. And mixed in were the freesia, roses, and mandarins hanging in garlands on the streets, all forming a sparkling tangerine and warm brown sugar symphony on Marielle’s vision. Her mouth watered.

  Excitement and delight spiked in reds and electric blues smelling of electricity and sweet apple. On Summernight Eve, the tradition of Jingen was to dress as the Legends and give gifts door to door. People filled the streets below with baskets and barrows and carts heaped with baking and treats, fruits and trinkets. The more a person could afford to give, the better luck in the year to come. Tomorrow night, on the shortest night of the year – Summernight – the year would begin afresh and with it, the luck that came from giving.

  Marielle would have no such luck. She wasn’t lying in wait to give anyone anything. She was waiting here to take – take a man’s freedom, his future, his life.

  Master Kurond had been very accommodating, allowing Marielle to sneak in when the other apprentices were preoccupied with dressing for the evening. No one had seen her arrive. No one had seen her sit quietly on the stool and with the sun setting soon, it wouldn’t be long until dusk fell and with it, Marielle was certain that Tamerlan – the golden scented apprentice – would return to his rooms to retrieve anything he’d left there.

  He would probably want the book page Marielle had found. Or at least, she was hoping he would. It seemed valuable. And people rarely hid things under their blankets unless they were personal to them. She felt for it in her belt. It was still there.