Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
Izzy made her way down the busy street, beads of sweat trickling down her neck and temples.
It was one of those early autumn days when the city felt particularly parched.
Although the nights were cool, the days were not, and the sun beat down until it was sweltering beneath the woolen canopies.
The air was too still, too oppressive, as if a storm was brewing.
Gods, she needed it to rain. To cool her skin and to clear the itch she felt. She desperately wanted to stop and take her cloak off.
Something is wrong.
She felt it, but she couldn’t see where the danger was coming from.
And she didn’t want to stop to mess with her clothes, not when she was so close to the safety of her shop.
As soon as she was home with the door safely bolted, she would take off her cloak, drop her heavy satchel, and find something cool and crisp to drink.
Then she could think about what to do next.
At first, Dashiell stayed back, but he closed the gap when they reached the market until he followed just a few paces behind.
His gaze was on her every time she glanced around, and yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling of unease.
It was the same feeling she’d had in the Flame Hall earlier—that someone was watching her, someone with malice in their heart.
Izzy took a deep breath of hot, spice-filled air.
Grilled meat and charcoal smoke mingled with the acrid scents of dyed fabrics, tanned leather, and burning incense.
She passed a stall selling fever-tea and citronella, and for a moment, the clean lemon scent washed the others away, and then she was back in the heady mix.
Traders, stallholders, and hawkers vied for attention around her, shouting their wares and loudly proclaiming their products to be the best in all the world.
Shoppers haggled, parents shouted at children, and a cat jumped off a low wall and dashed down a narrow lane.
She was nearly home. She could already see her gleaming mhoba wood sign. Just a few yards past the next stall, and she’d be there.
“Mistress Izabel?” Dashiell’s voice came from right behind her shoulder.
She startled and spun to face him. Somehow, in the moments she’d been distracted by the hubbub of the market, a young boy had joined him.
The child was around six or seven years old—it was hard to tell under the layer of dirt and with how skinny he was—and had an unruly crown of silver-and-black curls and worried amber eyes.
“This young man has lost his mum,” Dashiell said. He bent to talk gently to the boy. “Where did you see her last?”
The boy held up a shaky finger and pointed to the south side of the market. He looked terrified, and Izzy ran her eye over his slight form, looking for wounds or hurts, but didn’t see any. “What’s your name?” she asked gently, holding out her hand.
“It’s Makai.” He took her hand and gripped it tightly. “Will you help me? Please?”
Izabel only hesitated for a second. She couldn’t leave him alone in the market. “Of course.”
Her beast rumbled unhappily, uncoiling in her belly as it sent a ripple of sapphire scales sliding up her neck.
They both wanted to be safely locked in at home, but Izzy knew the market well, and she had plenty of friends here.
Plus, Luka had trusted Dashiell enough to send him as her protector, so she was secure enough for now.
As soon as we find Makai’s mum, we’re going home.
Izzy nodded her agreement as the boy tugged her forward, with Dashiell right behind them.
“What does your mum look like?” Izzy asked.
The boy blinked at her. “Like me,” he replied, as if it should be obvious.
Izzy scanned the crowds of shoppers as they threaded through the stalls and barrows, but didn’t see any other black-and-silver curls or worried amber eyes.
No one seemed to be searching for a missing child.
Everyone was busy haggling, picking up produce, checking the quality of fabric, eating and drinking, or simply browsing.
They came to the bargain side of the market without finding anyone for Makai.
These barrows were piled with dusty second—or third—hand clothes and linens, while the food carts were loaded with flatbreads and steamed dumplings.
They walked past an older woman, her wrinkled face pulled into a grimace as she stirred a huge pot of bone broth, the air full of the mingling scent of fat and onions.
The streets narrowed, growing ever gloomier, and they began to pass stores with dark interiors, their windows made of rippled green glass, dusty with embedded impurities.
These shops sold tallow lanterns, woven-grass mats, sacks of grain, and leaf-wrapped bundles of dried fish and salted meat.
Then they were past even those and nearing the streets of Naos.
Makai fidgeted and bit his cheeks, looking increasingly agitated as they walked.
They exited the market not far from the dockyard, and Izzy stopped.
They’d gone far enough with no luck. Makai tugged her forward, trying to drag her toward a gloomy alleyway, but Izzy dug in her heels.
She definitely wasn’t going that way, no matter how sad he looked.
She squeezed his hand and gave him a reassuring smile, despite her unease.
“We’ve looked the length of the market. It would be best if you came home with me.
You can have some sweet tea and a honey-seed cake while we find your mum.
” Once they were back, Dashiell could go out and look properly.
Someone must know where she could be found.
Makai’s eyes filled with tears, and he pulled his hand back to wipe them away with his palms. He took a step away from her, and then another, his mouth opening and closing as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.
His distress at losing his mum seemed to have suddenly overtaken him.
She took a step toward him, ready to take his hand and guide him back to the side of the market she knew well. But before she could, she felt the sharp sting of a slim blade at her back, a little to the side of her spine… right over her kidney.
Izzy dropped her hand to the knife in her belt and started to spin, ready to fight, to scream, but Dashiell’s low snarl stopped her.
“I wouldn’t if I were you. I have a needle blade between your ribs.
One quick thrust and you’ll be on your knees, bleeding inside your guts.
You’ll be dead before anyone can be bothered to care. ”
Her beast roared in furious outrage as a shimmering wave of scales erupted from her toes to her hairline. But the knife was too slender and too viciously sharp for her leathery scales.
Dashiell slid the blade a thumb’s width deeper into her flesh, deep enough to spread a fiery burn through her back and side, and to leave her beast howling. Izzy had no doubt he would kill her and leave her body in the market. She tried to control her ragged breathing. “What are you doing?”
“I saw you leaving the clinic,” Dashiell said, “and I followed you to the Burnished Hall. You had the look of someone moving on. The opportunity was too good to waste.”
“What do you want from me?” she whispered.
“I want what I should have always had. Comfort. Money. Power. Why should you have those things and not me?”
“I don’t have those things,” Izzy insisted. “Maybe there’s some gold in the shop, but I spend most of it on the clinic I help with in Naos. If you come with me, I’ll give you everything I have.”
Dashiell chuckled unkindly. “I know exactly how little money that shop makes. Benja was my friend.”
Izzy twisted to look into his cold green eyes. “Benja? The apothecary?”
Dashiell ignored her. “Nothing you have is worth anything. But you can help me get something that actually does have some value, a product that will ensure I never have to work again.”
God of Chaos. There was only one product that could possibly earn that kind of wealth. Izzy shook her head. “Firebreather is a scourge. I won’t help you spread your drug any further than you already have.”
This time he laughed outright. “I’m not talking about Firebreather.”
Icy dread spiraled through her. “What are you talking about?” Izzy asked.
“Something even rarer… and more lucrative.”
Gods of fire. What does he mean?
“People have seen us together,” Izzy said desperately as the blade tip embedded in her back burned. “Makai knows you’re with me.” She met the boy’s frightened eyes. “Run to the castle and ask for Luka. Tell him what happened. I promise you, you’ll be looked after. I promise.”
“Makai knows better than to do something so stupid. I know who his mother is and where he and his baby sister live,” Dashiell said, glaring pointedly at the boy. “And I don’t need Luka flying to the rescue just yet.”
Makai whimpered, but Dashiell had turned to focus on Izzy. “Pass me your dagger. Hold it between your finger and thumb only.”
God of Chaos. She had no choice. She drew the dagger out of her belt and handed it over.
Dashiell tested the blade with his thumb and sneered, clearly not finding it to his liking.
He dumped it behind an old wagon full of rubble.
Then he stripped off his green city guard cloak, leaving him in a nondescript leather jerkin, and threw it to the boy.
“Take this and look after it for me. And make yourself scarce.”
Makai dipped a shaky bow. He mumbled an apology, eyes bright with unshed tears, and then turned, clutching the cloak, and ran.
“Luka will know,” Izzy said as her beast thrashed in her belly and blood slid down her back beneath her chemise. “He’ll read my note and come for you.”
Dashiell grinned, his dimples flashing, and somehow, for the first time, he seemed genuinely amused.
“You mean this note?” He passed her the folded parchment.
She didn’t have to look at it to know it was hers.
“Right now the kitchen is probably wondering why in the Abyss you sent them a city guard equipment list.”
Mother of the gods. Should she try to run? The cobbles were smooth and slick, and Dashiell was clearly fit and strong. But she couldn’t stay with him.
He leaned down and whispered roughly in her ear. “If you try it, you’ll die slowly, and Luka will never find your body.”
She stilled, fighting to breathe through her fear. While she was alive, she had hope, and she had no doubt that if she ran, Dashiell would kill her as he promised.
Dashiell tugged at her cloak with his free hand. “Cover your hair, Mistress Izabel, and come along. We have things to prepare.”