FIVE
The linen sheets were cold beneath Aly’s hand. She opened her eyes to see Grant dressing by the light of the magical lamps, their white glow turning his skin a deathly pale.
Aly rolled over and sat up, pulling the blankets up her chest. The heating was on, but the air was still cool enough to lift goosepimples on her bare shoulders.
“You know, that kilt pin will fetch a lot more than four shillings if we sit on it a few months. Rory can fence it when he goes to Kinairgid in the spring. It’ll be hard to sell when it’s hot. ”
Grant shrugged as he buckled on his kilt. “So don’t tell them it is.”
“Any legitimate pawnshop will record the sale with the police—along with my name and description.” While it was easy enough to give a fake name, pawnbrokers in the city were careful to keep detailed descriptions of their customers in these instances.
The police wouldn’t get her today for the sale of the item, or even next week, but if the fellow had reported it missing, it was only a matter of time before she was arrested for something else and a copper matched her to the description.
“And fences?” Aly went on. “Most won’t buy from the Wolf pup, and certainly not if they’ve heard it’s been reported stolen.
” Though fences and thieves were dishonest by nature, they only worked with those they trusted; there was too much at risk for both of them to either buy from or sell to a stranger or someone untrustworthy.
“Not even the Leannan sìth?” There was a glint in Grant’s eye as he named Aly’s old fence.
Aly’s gut tightened. The Leannan sìth—Yvaani, as Aly knew her—had been her friend once, before Aly had betrayed her friendship and taken up with Grant.
“You know she doesn’t buy from me anymore.
” If she went at the right time of day and it was Mairi working the till, then perhaps she could get something for the pin, but Yvaani would as likely toss her out as pay tuppence for it.
“Well, I’m sure you can find someone to take it.” The silver buttons on Grant’s waistcoat flashed in the lamplight as he fastened them. “You’re resourceful.” He made it sound more like an insult than a compliment.
Aly suppressed a groan. “Why are you being so obstinate?” Usually, he deferred to her on matters like this. It was, after all, what he had originally hired her for, and he knew that she was far more familiar with this part of the underworld than he was.
Grant rounded on her, stalking towards the bed and leaning over her. She shrank back until the carved wooden headboard dug into her shoulder blades. “Because my deputy let my customer pay with a bloody kilt pin.”
Aly lifted her chin, staring into the amber eyes that held little warmth despite their colour.
“Would you have preferred it if he made a scene? Or fetched a copper and told them he had found a salching market?” She gave a bitter laugh.
“They’d have listened. He had the sort of accent the police trust.”
Grant reached for her and she fought the urge to flinch, but his touch was light as he smoothed the hair back from her face. “So do you, my dear.”
“The difference is, he’d have proof,” Aly pointed out.
She remembered why she’d recognised him now.
His face was all over the papers. “And he was a burgess. They’d have trusted him, and he’d have led them right to us.
You know how people view salchs.” Selling one’s own power was treated with disgust, even though no one put themselves in such pain and danger when they had any other option to avoid destitution.
Buying, on the other hand, was overlooked, because it was done by the wealthy and well-connected.
“He’d have got off with a warning, if that, and the salchs would all have gone to prison. ”
“And you’d have weaselled your way out like you always do with that clever little tongue of yours and we’d have set up somewhere else.” Aly’s stomach roiled. “There are always more desperate folk willing to sell their magic. We’d have lost nothing.”
Nothing but the innocent people who’d be arrested for salching, or Hazel—even Rory—who’d be charged for operating a salching market. In Grant’s eyes, they were all replaceable.
Grant’s hand slid to her chin, his grip tightening. “We don’t deal in barter. Understood?”
Aly nodded, her throat dry.
Grant stood, tugging his coat on. “End of the week. Four shillings. Oh, and come round my office this morning, shall we say around ten o’clock? I have a task for you.” And with that he was gone, quenching the magic that powered the lights and heating and plunging Aly into frigid darkness.
She rested her elbows on her knees, scrubbing her face with her hands. This was all her fault. If she’d turned the burgess away, she wouldn’t be on the hook for four shillings. He might not have made a scene or called the police. A burgess wouldn’t want to be known for patronising salchs.
And Grant was only asking her to make up the cost. He wasn’t punishing her for her failure, as he could well do if he wanted to. He was only asking her for what was owed. Never mind that four shillings was almost half her weekly pay—when Grant didn’t dock it for expenses.
Aly dug her hands into her hair. So many times she’d thought about disappearing. Would he look for her? She didn’t know, and it didn’t even matter. He provided her home and income, and without him, she had nothing. She was nothing.
Agust of wind blew the door closed behind Aly as she stepped into the pawnshop, her teeth chattering with cold.
She blew on her fingers to warm them, squinting in the dingy light.
The room was small, lit by a few tallow candles in polished tin sconces on the walls.
Heavy wooden cabinets lined the room, their doors thrown open for visitors to inspect the wares inside, an eclectic collection of cheap jewellery, cookware, books, sporrans, furnishings, and goods that had certainly not arrived in Mossburgh honestly—tweed from Ardstede, silk from Rizhnuth, and some delicate silver ornaments from Vaedhoun.
Aly’s heart dropped at the sight of the woman behind the counter.
She’d tried half a dozen fences already that morning, and all of them had turned her away for being the Wulver’s deputy.
It left her with little choice but to try her former friend’s shop and hope she found Mairi there.
Mairi was unaware of the more unsavoury parts of Yvaani’s business, and though she knew Yvaani and Aly had fallen out, she had always remained professional.
Instead of Mairi’s polite smile, Yvaani’s dark eyes narrowed at the sight of Aly, her black hair curling in a storm cloud about her face. Guilt and sorrow clutched at Aly’s heart at the sight of her old friend.
“Where’s Mairi?” she asked. Perhaps she’d just stepped out.
“She quit.” Yvaani’s voice cracked like a whip.
“Your wife quit.” The words were out before Aly could consider the wisdom of them.
Yvaani shot her a look that could pierce bone. “Aye, and if you’re thinking of carrying that wee titbit back to your boss, she’s away to the countryside and no, I don’t know where.”
Aly took a half-step back, her cheeks burning as though Yvaani had slapped her. “Is that what you think of me? I would never tell him about your family.”
“You’re his deputy.”
“I’m still my own person. I’m not a bloody lapdog.”
“I’m not in the mood to listen to you trying to convince yourself you’re a good person today.” Aly opened her mouth to protest, but Yvaani cut her off. “Why are you here?”
Aly hesitated, peering into the other woman’s eyes.
Yvaani didn’t like her, that much was apparent, but she was also the only fence Aly had tried so far that morning who hadn’t thrown her out on sight—and, just as importantly, Aly trusted her.
The trust might no longer be reciprocated, but Aly knew Yvaani wouldn’t cheat her or turn her in to the police.
She pulled the silver kilt pin out of her pocket, setting it on the worm-eaten wooden counter between them.
It was a lovely piece of work, with an old-fashioned claymore set into the pin, silver wire crisscrossing the sword and curving around the sapphire embedded in the hilt.
It was untarnished, polished and bright, and the pin remained sharp.
Aly set the pin on the counter between the two of them while Yvaani filled a round glass jar with water, pulling a candle towards her so that the water sat between the candle and the kilt pin, focusing the brightness.
The silk noil of her waistcoat glimmered in the concentrated light.
Her eyes widened as she took in the kilt pin, picking it up and tilting it so the stone in the hilt caught the light.
Her slender fingers were the colour of polished cedar, delicately grasping the pin.
“Who’d you nick this off?” she asked.
Aly leant on the counter, pressing her cold hands together. “Believe it or not, I was given it.”
“Aye, right.” Yvaani frowned at the jewel in the hilt, then set the kilt pin down, digging around in a drawer and pulling out a magnifying glass. Picking up the pin again, she examined it more closely through the glass, her brow furrowed.
“I was. Some posh toff showed up at Grant’s market and didn’t have the money.”
Yvaani dropped the pin as though it had burned her. “You’re fae-touched if you think I’m going to buy from him.”
“It’s not for him. It’s for me.” Aly pushed the pin back towards Yvaani. “He’s holding me responsible for the money he’s owed.”
“Does he know about this?” Yvaani picked up the kilt pin again, holding it up to the light.
Aly suppressed a wince. She knew what Yvaani was really asking. If Grant knew about it, he could come looking for it. “Aye, I showed it to him.”
“Why would you do a thing like that?” Yvaani shot Aly a disdainful look.
Aly’s cheeks warmed. “Because it would have been far worse for the lass who was working the door if I hadn’t.”
Yvaani’s face softened slightly. “I did warn you about him,” she said, so quietly it seemed she spoke more to herself than to Aly.
“Aye, you warned me. And you know why I didn’t listen.” They’d trodden this ground so many times before it was a well-worn path.
“Aye, you wanted more stability than thieving,” Yvaani snarled. She held up the kilt pin. “How’s that working out for you?”
Aly snatched the kilt pin out of her hand. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it elsewhere.”
“Where? If you had anywhere else to sell it, you wouldn’t be here. Nobody else is thick enough to take it off you.”
“Are you saying you are?” Aly snapped.
Yvaani stared at her a long moment. Aly’s quickened breath was loud in the still room. After an age, Yvaani spoke. “What do you owe him?”
“Four shillings.” She could have lied and said five—that would give her enough to afford food for the next few days, and already she was reduced to nicking pies from inattentive stall-keepers to eat—but they both knew Yvaani was doing her a favour.
“I can give you one and sixpence.”
They both knew it was worth six times that, but the discount was Yvaani’s hazard pay.
“Thank you,” Aly said softly. Yvaani dropped two silver coins in her palm, a shilling and a bawbee, and she closed her fingers around the cold metal. She wet her lips. “What happened—what happened with Mairi?”
Yvaani’s face shuttered. “What interest does the Wulver’s deputy have in my marital troubles?”
“I’m not asking as his deputy,” Aly said. “I’m asking as your friend.”
“We’re not friends. We’ve not been friends in a long time.”
Aly swallowed, her throat tight, then turned and strode out of the shop.
As her feet hit the cobblestones she turned left and down the hill, heading for the harbour. There were dozens of food stands set up there even at this early hour, and she needed food before she tried to figure out how to replace the money.
The smell of the market hit Aly first, the aroma of freshly baked bread making her stomach rumble.
The food stalls were already doing a roaring trade at this hour, though there weren’t the throngs of customers that would be there for lunch and dinner later in the day.
Rickety wooden stands with brightly coloured canvas awnings were scattered throughout the harbour square, selling fish pies, rolls stuffed with boiled eggs, spiced Rizh pastries, steamed Ujuyul dumplings, and parcels of fish and vegetables wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper.
Aly held her hands casually at her sides, over the flaps of her pockets, as she wove between the stalls, wary of the groups of light-fingered children in threadbare clothing milling about the square.
She exchanged her bawbee for an oyster pie and a handful of pennies, barely tasting it as the steaming shellfish and hot gravy slid down her throat.
The pie was gone too quickly, and she was left with nothing but the buttery crumbs on her fingers, which she sucked at as she leant against a damp stone wall and considered going back for a second pie.
Her stomach said aye, but her mind was still turning over the ways she could make up the missing couple of shillings.
She had a few ideas, none of them appealing, but the least objectionable would probably make her the money she needed that morning.
She pushed off the wall and stalked down the quay, curling her shoulders against the damp wind. In a couple of hours, if all went well, she’d have a few more shillings in her pocket. And then she’d buy another pie.