I took off down the street, hoisting my skirt up over my boots—none of the proper ladies shoes we’d had on the boat had been in my size—so I wouldn’t trip on it. Tarrin followed close behind, whining about his boat and then asking why I wanted to go to the day market.
“ ’Cause,” I snapped, skirt flaring out as I faced him. “I’m thirsty, and I ain’t had a sweet lime drink in half a year. Can only get ’em in Lisirra.”
“Oh,” said Tarrin. “Well, you should have said something—”
I turned away from him and stalked toward the market’s entrance, all festooned with vines from the nearby gardens. The market was small, like Tarrin said, the vendors selling mostly cut flowers and food. I breezed past a sign advertising sweet lime drinks, not letting myself look back at Tarrin. I love sweet lime drinks, to be sure, but that ain’t what I was after.
It didn’t take me long to find a vendor that would suit my needs. He actually found me, shouting the Lisirran slang for Empire nobility. I’m pretty sure he used it as a joke. Still, I glanced at him when he called it out, and his hands sparkled and shone like he’d found a way to catch sunlight. He sold jewelry, most of it fake, but some of it pretty valuable—I figured he must not be able to tell the difference.
But most important of all, he had a camel, tied to a wooden pole with some thin, fraying rope, the knot already starting to come undone in the heat.
Tarrin caught up with me and squinted at the vendor.
“You want to apologize for laughing at me,” I said, “buy me a necklace.”
“To wear at our wedding?”
“Sure.” I fixed my eyes on the camel. It snorted and pawed at the ground. I’ve always liked camels, all hunchbacked and threadbare like a well-loved blanket.
Tarrin sauntered up to the vendor, grin fixed in place. The vendor asked him if he wanted something for the lady.
I didn’t hear Tarrin’s response. By then, I was already at the camel, my hands yanking at the knot. It dissolved quick as salt in water, sliding to the bottom of the pole.
I used that same pole to vault myself up on the saddle nestled between the two humps on the camel’s back, hiking the skirt of my dress up around my waist. I leaned forward and went “tut” into his ear like I’d seen the stall vendors do a thousand times. The camel trotted forward. I dug the heels of my boots into his side and we shot off, the camel kicking up great clouds of golden dirt, me clinging to his neck in my silk dress, the pretty braids of my hairstyle coming unraveled in the wind.
The vendor shouted behind me, angry curses that would’ve made a real lady blush. Then Tarrin joined in, screaming at me to come back, hollering that he hadn’t been joking about the assassins. I squeezed my eyes shut and tugged hard on the camel’s reins and listened to the gusts of air shoving out of his nostrils. He smelled awful, like dung and the too-hot-sun, but I didn’t care: We were wound up together, me and that camel.
I slapped his reins against his neck like he was a horse and willed him to take me away, away from my marriage and my double-crossing parents. And he did.
All of Tarrin’s hollering aside, we galloped out of the garden district without much trouble. I didn’t know how to direct the camel—as Papa always told me, my people ride on boats, not animals—but the camel seemed less keen on going back to that vendor than I did. He turned down one street and then another, threading deeper and deeper into the crush of white clay buildings. Eventually he slowed to a walk, and together we ambled along a wide, sunny street lined with drying laundry.
I didn’t recognize this part of the city.
There weren’t as many people out, no vendors or bright-colored shop signs painted on the building walls. Women stuck their heads out of windows as we rode past, eyebrows cocked up like we were the funniest thing they’d seen all day. I might have waved at them under different circumstances, but right now I had to figure out how to lay low for a while. Escaping’s always easy, Papa taught me (he’d been talking about jail, not marriage, but still). Staying escaped is the hard part.
I found this sliver of an alley and pushed at the camel’s neck to get him to turn. He snorted and shook his big shaggy head, then trudged forward.
“Thanks, camel.” The air was cooler here: A breeze streamed between the two buildings and their roofs blocked out the sun. I slid off the camel’s back and straightened out my dress. The fabric was coated with dust and golden camel hairs in addition to the mud-and-saltwater stains at the hem, and I imagined it probably smelled like camel now too.
I patted the camel on the head and he blinked at me, his eyes dark and gleaming and intelligent.
“Thanks,” I told him again. I wasn’t used to getting around on the backs of animals, and it seemed improper not to let him know I appreciated his help. “You just got me out of a marriage.”
The camel tilted his head a little like he understood.
“And you’re free now,” I added. “You don’t have to haul around all that fake jewelry.” I scratched at the side of his face. “Find somebody who’ll give you a bath this time, you understand?”
He blinked at me but didn’t move. I gave him a gentle shove, and he turned and trotted out into the open street. Myself, I just slumped down in the dust and tried to decide what to do next. I figured I had to let the camel go ’cause I was too conspicuous on him. Together we’d wound pretty deeply into Lisirra’s residential mazes, but most people, when they see a girl in a fancy dress on a camel—that’s something they’re going to remember. Which meant I needed to get rid of the dress next, ideally for money. Not that I have any qualms about thievery, but it’s always easier to do things on the up and up when you can.
I stood and swiped my hands over the dress a few times, trying to get rid of the dust and the camel hairs. I pulled my hair down so it fell thick and frizzy and black around my bare shoulders. Then I followed the alley away from the triangle of light where I’d entered, emerging on another sun-filled street, this one more bustling than the other. A group of kids chased each other around, shrieking and laughing. Women in airy cream-colored dresses and lacy scarves carried baskets of figs and dates and nuts, or dead chickens trussed up in strings, or jars of water. I needed one of those dresses.
One of the first lessons Papa ever taught me, back when I could barely totter around belowdeck, was how to sneak around. “One of the most important aspects of our work,” he always said. “Don’t underestimate it.” And sneaking around in public is actually the easiest thing in the whole world, ’cause all you have to do is stride purposefully ahead like you own the place, which was easy given my silk dress. I jutted my chin out a little bit and kept my shoulders straight, and people just stepped out of the way for me, their eyes lowered. I went on like this until I found a laundry line strung up between two buildings, white fabric flapping on it like the sails of our boat.
Our boat.
The thought stopped me dead. She wasn’t my boat no more. Never would be. I’d every intention of finishing what I started, like Papa always taught me. But finishing what I started meant I’d never get to see that boat again. I’d spent all my seventeen years aboard her, and now I’d never get to climb up to the top of her rigging and gaze out at the gray-lined horizon drawn like a loop around us. Hell, I’d probably never even go back to the pirates’ islands in the west, or dance the Confederation dances again, or listen to some old cutthroat tell his war stories while I drifted off to sleep in a rope hammock I’d tied myself.
A cart rolled by then, kicking up a great cloud of dust that set me to coughing. The sand stung my eyes, and I told myself it was the sand drawing out my tears as I rubbed them away with the palm of my hand. There was no point dwelling on the past. I couldn’t marry Tarrin and I couldn’t go home. If I wanted to let myself get morose, I could do it after I had money and a plan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© Brittany Lincoln
CASSANDRA ROSE CLARKE is the author of many novels, including Star’s End, Our Lady of the Ice, The Mad
Scientist’s Daughter, and Magic of Blood and Sea. Her novels have been finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award, the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award, and YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons and Daily Science Fiction. Cassandra graduated in 2006 from the University of St. Thomas with a BA in English, and two years later she completed her master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2010 she attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle, where she was a recipient of the Susan C. Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund. She currently teaches composition and rhetoric at a pair of local Houston colleges. Visit her at cassandraroseclarke.com.
SAGAPRESS.COM
SIMON & SCHUSTER NEW YORK
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SIMONANDSCHUSTER.COM
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Cassandra-Rose-Clarke
ALSO BY CASSANDRA ROSE CLARKE
Our Lady of the Ice
The Mad Scientist’s Daughter
Magic of Blood and Sea
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
* * *
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Wizard’s Promise copyright © 2014 by Cassandra Rose Clarke
The Nobleman’s Revenge copyright © 2017 by Cassandra Rose Clarke
Cover illustrations copyright © 2017 by Dane Cozens
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Saga Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
SAGA PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Also available in a Saga Press paperback edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Clarke, Cassandra Rose, 1983, author.
Title: Magic of wind and mist / Cassandra Rose Clarke.
Description: First Saga Press paperback edition. | New York : Saga Press, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017004921 | ISBN 9781481461702 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 9781481476423 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481461719 (eBook)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3603.L372 M34 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017004921
Magic of Wind and Mist Page 51
