by Natalie Mae
We hurry to the end to watch the procession coming up the road.
The priest and Royal Materialist are in front, flanked by their leopard-masked guards, and behind them, half the town. Maybe we do need to watch the woman. While the guards keep their gazes forward and stiff (though, who knows what they’re looking at under those masks), her restless eyes shift to the streets and the celebratory flowers strung between buildings. As if she can sense Hen’s irritation with her, her gaze suddenly moves to us.
“She knows,” Hen says, crossing her arms. “Memorize this face, Galena. It’ll be the last you see when the queen discovers you’re a fraud.”
“Keep your voice down,” I say. “And your imaginary vendettas on hold. What do we do now?”
“How should I know? I’m just here to grab the ledger.”
“All right, but I’m not used to this life of crime. Do I run at them like a religious fanatic? Scream in agony and pretend I broke my ankle?”
“Both good options. I’ll see you in a few.” She darts back the way we came.
“Wait!” I whisper. “Where are you going?”
And she’s gone without an answer. Leaving the fate of the entire evening to me.
All right, Zahru, focus. If they were riding horses, I could have easily introduced myself as the town Whisperer and spent an excessive amount of time tending to their mounts. I could ask for the priest’s blessing, but I think the guards would stop me before I could get close. They’re almost here. Gods, maybe I should run out howling about my ankle.
I move for the street, imagining the look on my father’s face when the priest’s guards drag me home. What am I always telling you, Zahru? he’ll say as the guards untie my hands. You went in without a plan, didn’t you?
Yes, Fara. I went in without a plan.
“Are those lotus boots?” I shriek, praying the Royal Materialist is half as obsessed with going over the details of her work as a certain local one is. “Wait, you . . .” I put my hand to my heart. “You’re Galena of Juvel.”
The woman smiles. “Yes, I am.”
“Move off,” a guard snaps, shoving a spear at me.
“Oh, let the girl be,” the woman says, beaming as she steps around him. “What’s your name?”
Her tone is a little patronizing, but I have to say I’m impressed by her friendliness. “Zahru. I’m a huge fan of yours.”
“Zahru, it’s nice to meet you. I—”
“Galena,” the priest grumbles.
“A minute, Mai. She’s only a girl.” She turns back to me, her pretty violet eyes—powdered with gold and lined with swirls of kohl—darting once down the plain linen of my dress to my bare feet. “You like fashion, Zahru?”
“Yes, adel. I know all about bronze eyelets and Luck shawls.” Not a lie. I know too much about them, if she’s really wondering.
“Another of my fine inventions. That Luck shawl got me this job.” She winks, and over her shoulder I catch a flash of green.
“Where did you get the idea for the lotus boots?” I won’t pretend I’m not fishing for an answer for Hen, and I think I see that green flash pause.
“On a summer walk under the stars. The palace has several beautiful pools covered with lotus flowers, and when I went wading, the idea came to me.”
A whisper that sounds very much like “Lies” drifts through the crowd.
“That seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation,” I say loudly.
“Did you know I’m from a town even smaller than Atera?” the woman continues, and now she has my true attention.
“You are?”
“My mother was a Materialist, but she passed when I was born. My father was a Gardener. Without her we had only his trade to live by, and I went many years of my life without any shoes at all.”
I swallow and scrunch my toes in the sand. This just got much more personal than I ever intended it to, and I know I said I’d side with Hen on pretty much anything, but she didn’t tell me Galena grew up without her mother, too.
“Here.” She begins unlacing her boots. The crowd gasps, and when I understand what she’s doing, my heart jerks. Oh gods, I hope Hen is finished—
“Take these,” she says, handing me the boots, which are several times more expensive than anything I will ever own. “And remember, no matter what you’re born to, you can be more.”
She smiles and starts off, and I can only stare after her, my heart like a dragonfly in my chest. I should probably be taking an important life lesson away from this about honesty and hard work, but all I can think of is how similar our stories are, and how she now travels on a glass boat at the side of a priest. It has to be a sign. That I’m meant to do this, and everything will work out, and maybe it will be even more amazing than I first imagined.
It’s only after the last guard has passed and the crowd wanders in, ogling the lotus boots and whispering, that I remember I’m on a mission. Someone asks to touch the shoes, and under normal circumstances I might have stayed and shared them, but now I clutch them to my chest and dash to the end of the street where I saw Hen disappear. My blood thrums through my body, fitful and restless. I pass through the alley and back into the upper district, around a corner—and right into the crossed arms of Hen.
“Gods!” I yelp, juggling the boots. “Hen! Did you get it?”
Her brown eyes narrow. “It’s done.”
I scream and throw my arms around her. I know exactly what she’s going to say next, but I’m too thrilled to care. We’re leaving. We’re actually leaving Atera to go to the palace, where there are trees that bloom jewels and golden rooms as big as towns. We’ll eat all the chocolate we can stomach. We’ll trail mysterious strangers and find secret passages and witness at least one spectacular rescue, because in all of the travelers’ best stories, someone is always saving someone.
And when we return, Hen and I will bring back with us a memory just like our mothers’. Maybe it’ll be the last one we have before Hen leaves at harvest. Or maybe, I think, squeezing the boots, it will be the first of many.
“You are touching me with her shoes,” Hen complains.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling back. But I can’t stop from grinning. “I did what the mission called for.”
A sigh. “You were really very good.”
“Convincing?”
“I suppose.” But even with her enemy’s contraband in my hands, she can’t stop a small smile. She gives my shoulders a shake. “We’re going to the banquets.”
I let out another squeal, and this time she joins me.
“There’s just one thing left to do,” she says, a new gleam in her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you’re going after Galena now.”
“Oh, she’ll get hers, but there are more immediate needs at hand.” Her smile quirks. “It’s time for phase two.”
I blink. “There’s a phase two?”
“Yes. One your delicate conscience won’t be able to handle.” She smirks. “Say goodbye to your father, and I’ll find you as soon as I can.”
II
I’M very quiet as I slip in through the stable door. But as anxious as I am to admit to the man who raised me that I’ve turned into a petty con artist, my fara is not inside. The animals stir in their stalls; a camel chews noisily on her cud. My father must be in the pasture.
Gods, please let him give me his blessing.
I flex my grip on the small sack I’m holding and start down the aisle.
Fara’s veterinary clinic is the biggest stable in town, not because we have the most money, but because we need the space. The Mestrah allows us free rent as long as we prioritize his soldiers’ horses on the rare occasion they come through. Half the stalls are reserved for large animals like cattle, gazelles, and camels. We’ve converted the other half into keeps for small animals like cats, dogs, falcons—sometimes m
onkeys, when needed. Some of the animals simply need boarding while their owners travel, while others need medical care. Most of them have quite an opinion about being left here like, well, animals. But Fara is kind and patient, and I’d like to think I am, too, and after a day most of their complaints have subsided.
Twig girl, snorts a cow in the second stall. This food. Bad.
Except for the cows. Who seem to think they’re entitled to royal treatment, and who find the stable and its caretakers infinitely lacking.
“I don’t have time for you right now,” I say. “It’s fresh. Just eat what I gave you.”
Sensitive thing, thinks her companion, eyeing me.
Human on bad food, too, remarks the first. Can’t make grain, can’t make anything.
I grit my teeth. “For the last time, you’re on a diet. Your masters specifically told me not to give you honey.”
The second snorts. Always on diet when here. Food bad as chewed cud.
“Oh, you ungrateful—”
“You know it’s no use arguing,” Fara says, squeezing in through the far doorway and making me jump. My father is dressed today in his usual working slip, a sandy fabric that nearly matches his skin in the mild winter months but is now several shades lighter than his summer tan. A herding dog wiggles in his arms, one leg wrapped in palm leaves where a salve covers a scorpion sting. The other three legs thrash when she sees me.
Human! Human human human, can I see her? Please please please! I need down. Down down!
She licks Fara’s face with the last request, and he smiles and strokes her side. “Yes, you did very well. We’ll go back outside again soon.”
No, down! Human! Play! Play—cat? Cat! Cat cat!
My heart clenches as Fara lowers the dog into a converted stall. As with most magic in our world, his abilities have faded with age and use, the same way muscles weaken over time. Fara was lucky to make it twenty-nine years with his. That’s the only advantage of the lesser magics: they take far less of a toll on our bodies, and so we can use them longer. But many would agree ten years as Orkena’s most powerful Firespinner far outshines thirty as Orkena’s best Whisperer.
Two moons ago, Fara went deaf to the animals completely, and they stopped being able to understand him as well. And while it hasn’t affected his medical expertise, he can no longer ask his patients what ails them or sense their fear, and so the weight of the stable has slowly shifted to me.
“You’ve been gone awhile,” Fara says, wiping his hands on an old rag. “Was the market very busy?”
“I—yes,” I say, hastily handing over the bag. “But I found everything we needed. I even got acacia and aloe. And that snake bite salve we liked so well.”
Fara stares. “Zahru, that salve is expensive. We can make do with the honey poultice.”
“It’s all right. Hen covered it.”
A small lie. The lotus boots covered it. Hen wanted me to get rid of them, so I did.
Fara tsks. “She shouldn’t have. She and her mother have already done far too much for us.”
This is the point where I should move on to the reason I splurged on so many fine medicines, but being the awkward and half-ashamed daughter I am, I just stand there while Fara takes the bag to the dusty cabinet. I’m still not sure how to tell him what I’ve done. Oddly it’s not even the priest-conning part of it I’m worried about. It’s that I can see how diligently he’s working despite the excited shouts outside the stable; how focused he is even as the rest of Atera leaves their work to blow horns in the streets. He isn’t even annoyed with it, just . . . accepting. To him, our place is here, and the idea of me keeping company with Dreamwalkers and Airweavers is absurd at best. I couldn’t stand to hear him say I don’t belong with them at the palace.
But more than that, I don’t want him to see how badly I want to leave.
“Zahru,” Fara says in the tone he uses when he’s been trying to get my attention for some time. He’s holding a jar of numbing cream from the sack, another small treasure I splurged on.
“Yes?”
“Are you sad about Hen’s invitation?”
My stomach clenches. I wasn’t even sure he knew she’d been invited. “No. Well, I was at first, but then . . .”
“I’m sorry about it, too,” Fara says, fidgeting with the cream. “I feel . . . it’s my fault. If you had your mother’s magic, maybe—”
“Fara!” My chest constricts, and I rush to him, shaken he believes that’s the reason I’d be sad about not going. Fara has always taken pride in our abilities, even if our work is not as celebrated as others’. And it’s not like he had any control over my fate—I inherited his Whisperer magic the same way I inherited my mother’s fair skin and amber eyes.
“Don’t say that,” I say, leaning my head against his broad chest. “Our work is important, too.”
He’s quiet a moment, his hand warm on my back. Then he pulls me gently away and holds up the cream. “You’re going to try to get in, aren’t you?”
Heat flushes my neck. “I . . .”
“That was a very long hug, and these are a lot of expensive products.”
How does he do that? “I was really close to telling you, I promise.”
“Zahru, what if you get caught?”
“Hen looked into it. They’ll just escort us out. It’s only bad if you try to sneak in as a contender.”
“And if you’re in Juvel? Will they send you home?”
“Hen will be with me the whole time. She’ll buy our passage back if they won’t return us.” I press my hands together. “Please, Fara? It’s just a night. I’ll be back in time for supper tomorrow, and then I’ll be here. Forever.” I don’t mean to say that last word aloud, or in the ominous tone a priest would use to impart a deadly omen, but Fara understands. He kisses my head and sighs.
“You are my world, kar-a. I want you to be safe.” His smile is sad. “I also want you to be happy. It’s only for a night? You’ll be protected?”
“They’ll have guards. And literally all of the country’s top magicians will be within a kilometer of us. If we’re not safe there, we’re not safe anywhere.”
A grunt. Leave it to my father to consider even that might not be enough. “All right. You have my blessing.”
I squeal and hug him again. “Thank you, Fara! I’ll bring you something from the royal city.”
He shakes his head. “Just bring yourself back.” He pauses to think. “Though I wouldn’t mind some chocolate, if you can manage it.”
I smile. “Of course.”
I help Fara put away the remaining salves, excitement bouncing through me. My fake name is on the ledger. I have Fara’s blessing—now I just need to hear from Hen. But just as I’m starting to worry that “phase two” will involve me negotiating her release from jail, quick footsteps beat outside the stable, and she comes bouncing in.
“Zahru!” she wheezes.
She’s in a green jole, her arms bare and her deep beige skin glowing with pearl dust. Swirling golden circles—Numet’s symbol—curl around her bicep, and her short hair jingles with beads of gold and emeralds. She carries a bundle of garnet-red cloth wrapped over something that chimes as she moves.
“You look amazing,” I say.
“Storeroom!” she says, jogging past me without a glance.
“Is everything all right?”
“No time to chat. Phase two is complete, and they’re boarding the boat.”
She disappears behind the storage room’s tan curtain, and I nearly trip on the water jug as I hurry after her. “As in, boarding now?”
“Strip!”
“Has it been an hour already?” I pull my arms out of my sleeves and tug the slip off, while Hen sets the red bundle on a grain sack. “Wait. How did phase two take you an hour?”
“Less talking, more dressing!” Hen gathers t
he red dress into a loop and gestures for me to raise my arms, then pushes the bundle over my head. The shining fabric spills down my body, flaring from red to gold with the light. It’s sleeveless like Hen’s, but the top gathers in the center instead of the side, forming rippling pleats that overlay the dress all the way to the floor.
“Hen, this is . . . stunning,” I say, looking over my shoulder. The back opens to the base of my spine, where fine chains connect the fabric on either side. Hen flits behind me and mends a torn chain with a press of her fingers.
“It’s boring, is what it is,” she says. “But Mora wouldn’t let me dress you in only river reeds, so this is what I have to work with.”
“Is this fire silk?”
“Look straight ahead.”
I do. Hen grabs one of the things that had been bundled in the dress—a thin brush and a jar of black pigment—and holds my jaw with her free hand. “Close your eyes.”
“I already lined them,” I say as the brush kisses my eyelid.
“Mm hmm.”
The brush trails out to the edge of my eye and loops beside it.
“You better not be drawing anything gross.”
Hen snickers.
“Hen!”
“I’m not!”
The brush retracts, then starts on my other eyelid.
“There’s no phase three, right?” I ask. “Remember when I asked if I’d have to prove I was a Potionmaker? And you didn’t answer?”
This side of my face doesn’t get the same loop as the first. Hen has me look up and starts lining the bottom lid.
“The others had to prove their identities at the temple,” she says. “We don’t.”
“What does that mean?” The brush lifts, and I blink down at her. “You . . . made a deal with someone?”
Hen considers this, a small smile in her lips. “Yes?”
“See, when you give me an answer that sounds like a question, it makes me think you’re lying.”
