by Jordan Rivet
Still, she gleaned hints about him from other conversations. He was from the Pebble Islands in the northwest corner of the empire, even farther away than Dwindlemire. He was not the heir to his family’s noble seat, though Mica didn’t know how many older siblings he had, or exactly how important his family was. And he was still a bachelor, which made him a favorite topic for the palace gossips.
“I swear Lord Caleb gets handsomer by the day,” she heard a lady exclaim on the racquetball courts in the south garden one afternoon. The speaker, Lady Wendel, was taller than most men and almost as broad. “Bellina better seal that deal quickly, or someone else is going to swoop him up.” There was a thwack as she hit the ball back to her opponent.
Mica knelt to adjust her shoes, as close to the two women as she could get. She was impersonating Lady Elana for a match against Lady Euphia on the next court. Her opponent showed precious little interest in the sport, and she was off on a lengthy refreshment break in the shaded portico beside the garden. Noble brothers Hugh and Hector Ivanson were playing a boisterous game on the only other court in the garden, and they paid no attention as Mica eavesdropped on the two ladies.
“Scandalous,” said the other one, who turned out to be Lady Amanta. Her long black hair, threaded with a touch of gray, was pulled back from her rather flat face. “I heard Lady Bellina still hasn’t decided whether she can bear the Pebble Islands.”
“He doesn’t spend much time there anyway,” Lady Wendel said. “She’ll hardly miss a thing.”
“True.” Lady Amanta executed an elegant serve, her movements energetic for an older woman. “Lorna told me Bellina is worried about stepping on a certain pair of royal toes, though.”
“The princess?” Lady Wendel whacked the ball back across the net. “I thought she wasn’t interested in Caleb.”
“Mysterious, isn’t it?” Lady Amanta chuckled. “They’re always so friendly with each other.”
She stepped forward to return the volley, and the ball sailed away from the court. The two ladies paused as an attendant ran after it. Lady Euphia’s simpering voice carried over the crunch of footsteps on the gravel ball courts, announcing her imminent return. Mica couldn’t pretend to adjust her shoe for much longer.
“The Pebble Islands are too far away to be major players,” Lady Wendel said. “I doubt Jessamyn would accept that match. Caleb isn’t even the oldest son.”
Amanta simply patted her hair with a gloved hand. “She does love to keep people guessing.”
Lady Euphia emerged from the shaded portico where she had taken her tea, forcing Mica to return to her own game. But she caught Lady Wendel’s final words: “The princess could do worse than Lord Caleb in the looks department.”
When Mica reported the full conversation in the princess’s antechamber later, Jessamyn dissolved into fits of laughter. “They’re still gossiping about me and Caleb? Oh dear, that topic is so last season.”
“He’s not your suitor?” Mica asked casually.
“Lord Caleb is my dearest friend.” Jessamyn wiped away tears of mirth. “He’s an absolute darling, but I doubt very much that would be an advantageous match. I have several ladies in mind for Caleb, if Bellina doesn’t succeed in snaring him. None of them deserve him, of course.” Jessamyn suddenly fixed Mica with a shrewd look. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m just working out how all the pieces fit together,” Mica said. “It’ll help me do my job better.” She frowned. She felt oddly relieved that Jessamyn and Caleb were not romantically involved.
“Well, the next job I have for you has nothing to do with lords or ladies, but it requires the utmost discretion.” Jessamyn crooked a finger and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Can I trust you, Micathea Graydier?”
“Yes, Princess Jessamyn.” Mica leaned toward her, hoping she might finally be sent to do something more exciting than listen to idle gossip. “I am here to serve the empire.”
“Hmm.” Jessamyn studied her, arching one of her magnificent eyebrows. “I certainly hope you are.”
Chapter Ten
The task requiring the utmost discretion turned out to be picking up a long list of potions from the city.
“People talk whenever they see Brin or one of my Blurs in Potioners Alley,” Princess Jessamyn said. “You must turn yourself into a stranger as soon as you leave the palace gates. I don’t wish for the other ladies to learn all my secrets.” She handed over the list of potions and shooed Mica out the door.
The mission may not be what Mica had expected, but she’d been waiting for an opportunity to see the city. She hadn’t had time to venture out into Jewel Harbor since she arrived a few weeks ago. The Silver Palace was like a city unto itself, but she wanted to see more of the beating heart of the empire she had sworn to serve.
She adopted the face of a scullery maid as she hurried through the palace, then turned into a completely different woman as soon as she was out the door. She used a modified version of the cowherd’s daughter from her regular rotation. That particular girl would be too timid in this chaotic place, and the mannerisms fit her look a little too well. For her new city woman look, Mica kept the same thick freckles but darkened her hair to the color of strong coffee. She adopted a more confident walk than the country girl would use, something between the rushing steps of a palace attendant and the high and mighty stride of a noble lady.
When she left the palace gates, the city noises rushed in around her like a tidal wave. The streets were even busier than when she arrived in the carriage, and this time she was knee-deep in the chaos. People strode about, jostling each other without apology or concern. Gone were the polite respect of the Academy and the sharp discipline of Stonefoss. In Jewel Harbor, no one looked where they were going. No one made eye contact with strangers. No one slowed down to really look at anything or anyone.
Mica was supposed to be impersonating a confident Jewel Harbor woman, but she couldn’t help gawking. The city was magnificent. Above the packed streets, the buildings were decorated with sculptures, lattice windows, and tiles painted with intricate designs. The buildings nearest the palace were especially grand, though they too had given way before the ever-growing city’s ravenous need for space. Little shops crammed into the alleyways and additions protruded from their roofs. Some of the buildings were connected with stone walkways crossing above the streets, while others leaned so close to each other that you could hop from one window to the next.
“So this is the Jewel of the Empire.” Mica paused to stare at a stone walkway above the street that had shops built directly on top of it. It was a wonder the whole thing didn’t fall onto the crowds below. “My brothers would never believe this.”
Farther from the palace, the stone walkways gave way to rickety wooden bridges. The buildings were painted in a patchwork of colors, as if a different individual owned every room, each with their own ideas for how the outside of a building should appear. The array of rich details was dizzying, and Mica hardly knew where to look.
The people were just as colorful, coming from every island that made up the empire as well as lands much farther away. Their clothes were a myriad of fabrics and designs, ranging from the simple garb of sailors and servants to the opulent silks of merchants and courtesans. Their faces came in so many varieties that Mica found it impossible to catalogue them. It hardly seemed necessary for her to wear an impersonation at all. She would blend in here no matter how she looked. But there were eyes and ears everywhere in this city, and Jessamyn had demanded discretion.
Mica caught sight of a few pale Obsidian faces weaving through the crowds too. She followed an Obsidian man for a few blocks, his pale-white hair guiding her as effectively as a torch. When he arrived at the door of a many-storied tenement, a Jewel Harbor woman greeted him, shifting a baby to her hip so she could lean in for a kiss. Mica sighed. If the Talent kidnappers really were Impersonators, they wouldn’t walk through the streets wearing their own faces. Plenty of ordinary Obsidian citizens lived here, she remind
ed herself. The empire and the nearby kingdom were not at war, even though relations were often tense.
The idea of Obsidian Impersonators acting as spies had been bothering her since Master Kiev’s visit. The Obsidians enslaved their Talents, forcing them to live in camps and labor for the king, often under terrible conditions. The prosperity of their entire civilization was based on a horrific crime. But Impersonators could hide their abilities or disappear without a trace. How could they travel to the Windfast Empire as spies to do the king’s bidding? That would make them complicit in the king’s crimes against their fellow Talents.
Unlike in Obsidian, Windfast Talents were free to do as they wished. Blurs and Muscles were not required to serve in the army any more than Shields were required to be employed as bodyguards. They often fell into the careers that made the best use of their abilities, but the choice was important. Mica was tied to her assignment until she paid off the cost of her education, but she could have opted not to attend the Academy at all. When her debt was paid, she would be free to take up new employment.
As Mica wandered through the city with Jessamyn’s potion list in her hand, she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like if she had decided to make her fortune in Jewel Harbor instead of going to school. She may not have learned as much as she did at the Academy, but she wouldn’t be stuck working for people who looked down on her because she wasn’t a noble.
After taking a few wrong turns and stopping to ask for directions twice, she smelled the strange cocktail of odors she had noticed the day she arrived in Jewel Harbor: rosemary and sage, cedar and cinnamon, poppy, eucalyptus, incense. She followed her nose the rest of the way to Potioners Alley.
Shops lined the broad cobblestone lane, their windows displaying glittering bottles of multicolored potions. The scents issuing from them made Mica’s head spin. She scanned the elaborate signs over the apothecary doorways, which promoted strange and fantastical potions guaranteed to cure ailments, improve looks, and temporarily enhance an ordinary person’s speed and strength to Talent-like levels.
This street was as busy as any other, though the clientele came from a wealthier set, more likely to have attendants to hold their fine horses and coats made of imported silk and high-quality wool. Potions were not cheap by any standard, and Mica marveled that so many people in this city could afford them.
The shop Jessamyn sent her to wasn’t the fanciest one. In fact, it looked almost shabby compared to the grand apothecary next to it. The sign above the window read Magic Q: Potioner Extraordinaire.
A tiny silver bell rang above the door as Mica pushed it open. Inside, long shelves held thousands of identical glass bottles, each one marked with a simple brushwork Q. Though the bottles were the same, the potions inside were different shades of red, from the faintest tint of pale rose all the way to a murky red-black goop. The shop appeared to be deserted.
“Hello?”
Mica walked down the first aisle, her steps ringing faintly through the room of glass. The red potions gave the shop an eerie quality, as if she were walking through a blood vessel. The light shining through the bottles from the window made her freckled skin glow red.
“Is anyone here?” Mica called, feeling unsettled. “I’m picking up an order for—”
“I’m here, I’m here. No need to shout.”
A door at the back of the shop opened, and the potioner emerged. “Magic Q” wasn’t at all what Mica expected. She had imagined a wild-haired old man, perhaps with a glass eye and grizzled features. Instead, a woman not much older than Mica strode down the aisle, wiping her hands on a stained smock.
“You’re picking up?”
“Yes.” Mica handed over the paper. “I need the potions on this list, please.”
The woman scanned the list rapidly. She had sharp features, olive skin, and straight black hair cut to her chin in a razor line. “This is Princess Jessamyn’s order.”
“That’s correct.”
The woman looked Mica up and down. Her movements were crisp, her eyes intelligent. It was clear she didn’t miss much.
“You must be the new Impersonator.”
“How did you know?”
“The last one was terrible at voices. She sounded the same no matter what face she wore. Come on back. You can check the bottles before I pack everything up.”
Mica followed the potioner out of the red-tinted room and into a much cozier workshop in the back. Daylight flooded through a high window, illuminating a sturdy wooden table covered in vials, chopping boards, and measuring spoons. Huge vats of liquid sat on the floor within easy reach of the worktable. Crates full of those identical bottles sat empty in one corner, and a shelf along the wall held groups of completed potions, each labeled in thin, curly handwriting. The space smelled like a well-used kitchen. It was quiet and surprisingly calming after the frantic streets.
“Are you the Magic Q?” Mica asked as the woman marched over to the shelf and began choosing bottles and moving them to an uncluttered corner of her worktable.
“It’s Quinn. Magic Q is to attract the walk-ins. My real business is custom work.”
“I’m Mica.”
While Quinn selected the potions, Mica peeked at a small writing desk overflowing with notebooks and diagrams scrawled in that thin, curly handwriting. The lists of ingredients were incomprehensible to Mica, but it looked as though the potioner spent a lot of time improving on her craft.
“What do your potions do, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Anything you desire.” Quinn glanced over her shoulder at Mica. “Or your employer desires. Let’s see, this should be all of them.” She set the final bottle on the table. “Go ahead and make sure they’re full and sealed.”
Mica picked up the bottles one by one, comparing them to the list Jessamyn had given her. She had no idea how to tell if the bottles contained the correct substances, but this clearly wasn’t the first time Quinn had made potions for the princess.
“Iron Hair Strengthener . . . Ruby Rose Lip Tint . . . Alabaster Skin Ointment . . . These are beauty treatments. Why does she need expensive potions for that?”
Quinn barked a laugh. “That’s easy for a Mimic to say.”
“I mean she’s already beautiful,” Mica said. “She could use lard soap and paint her lips with berry juice, and she’d still attract every eye in the kingdom.”
“You underestimate what my potions can accomplish,” Quinn said. “Princess Jessamyn looks relatively normal without my help. The extra sheen of the hair and glow of the skin does more than you’d think. I’ve no idea what you look like under that face, but I bet you use your power to clear your complexion and brighten your eyes sometimes too.”
“I suppose.” Mica had been trained to use looks to accomplish her goals, but she hadn’t thought about how ordinary people did the same. “What’s this one for?”
She held up a bottle labeled Burst. The liquid inside was the color of wine.
“It’s a health tonic. That one gives an immediate energy boost.” Quinn pointed to another bottle holding a creamy concoction, like chalk mixed with red dye. “And this one holds off illness. The princess is too busy to get sick.”
“So this is why she has so much energy?” Mica said. “I was starting to think she was some sort of Blur-Muscle hybrid.”
“In a way, she is.” Quinn picked up the wine-red energy tonic. “This is three parts Blur, one part Muscle, plus a few secret ingredients of my own.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I make all my potions out of Talent blood.”
She said it so nonchalantly that Mica couldn’t tell whether or not she was joking. She made her potions out of blood? The shop full of red bottles suddenly took on an even more ominous quality.
“Is . . . is that . . . legal?”
“I pay my suppliers well.” Quinn glanced up and noticed the consternation on Mica’s face. “No need to look so shocked. The Talents come to me. I’m not knocking them out in alley
ways and draining them dry.”
“You’re saying Talents are selling their blood for you to use in potions?”
“That’s right. It’s powerful stuff.”
“But . . . why?”
“Same reason people sell their hair, or their bodies, or their labor. People need to eat. Their children need to eat.”
“Aren’t there better ways for Talents to make money?”
“Sometimes there’s work, and sometimes there isn’t. People make do. Jewel Harbor is an expensive place to live.”
Mica thought of the Mimic she had seen performing for coins in an alley when she arrived and how she had assumed he’d failed out of the Academy. Maybe there was more to it, especially if things were so bad that some Talents resorted to selling their blood.
“I didn’t know it could be so hard here.” She felt guilty for complaining about the Silver Palace, even to herself. She took a closer look at the potioner, who was probably five or six years older than her. “Have you always lived in Jewel Harbor?”
Quinn shook her head. “I came from Talon with nothing when I was twelve. Could have gotten myself into some real trouble, until another potioner took me in.”
“And now you have your own shop?” Mica stared at her, fascinated. “And the princess trusts you to supply her secret beauty treatments? You must have worked really hard.”
Quinn gave her a quick smile and began wrapping up the bottles in crinkly paper. “It’s interesting work, and I get to develop my own products.”
The light through the high window was fading. It would be dark soon. Mica wanted to linger in the shop and ask this woman more about her life in the city. She felt starved for company, for a sense of normalcy apart from the palace.
The potioner seemed to sense this as she tied up the package of potions and handed it to Mica. “The princess has been good to me, but she ran that last Mimic ragged. Make sure you get out on your own sometimes. If you come by another evening, I can show you this rooftop bar that’s good for a quiet drink.”
