Chapter 20
Still, true to his word, he and Chaska trudged through another district, having already searched half the city for the ever-elusive Nazim.
For this quest, they'd naturally started with the obvious bet: the areas surrounding the mercantile districts. Given the kobold's line of work, that just made sense.
There were four such districts in the city, which turned out to be considerably larger than he'd expected.
Then again, he conceded, any city would probably feel enormous when the task was finding one specific kobold and his shop, especially when they couldn't even be sure the kobold was in the city to begin with.
The first day took them through the northern and eastern districts.
The second cleared the remaining two, and still they found nothing.
On the third day, they shifted their search toward the heart of the city, where the nobility lived in a kind of lavish excess that reignited the burning rage he still held against these people for what they'd done to him a little over a week prior.
Either way, they spent another two days combing through it all, only to land on the same result as the day before.
And now it was the fifth day.
It would have been reasonable for Shiro to be frustrated after so much effort with nothing to show for it. He wasn't. Somewhere around the second day, he'd reframed the whole thing in his head as an unusually thorough sightseeing tour and had been enjoying it on those terms ever since.
Chaska hadn't managed the same adjustment. She'd looked disappointed after the first day. Each day since had piled on another small layer of despair. Today, evidently, was her breaking point.
She sat slumped at the edge of a fountain, shoulders sunk, staring at the ground.
"Come on," Shiro said, patting her shoulder before lowering himself beside her. "It's not over. There's still parts of the city we haven't covered—"
She turned on him with open accusation. "Aren't you the one who said if we didn't find him in the last two mercantile districts, we weren't going to find him at all?"
He winced. He had, in fact, said exactly that, several days ago, in a vulnerable burst of negativity he now deeply regretted.
Still, don't make me the villain here, he wanted to protest. Since she'd already cast him in that role regardless, he figured he might as well lean into it. "So... you really think he's not here."
She lifted her head. "Five days, and we haven't found a single trace of him. Either he isn't in this city, or he doesn't think we're worth finding."
"If you're asking which one I lean toward," Shiro offered, "it's the first."
"Why?"
"Just a feeling," he said, hoping that would be enough.
It was, after all, the entire foundation on which she'd dragged him across half the city in the first place, her conviction that he was somehow special, uniquely lucky in a way that practically guaranteed he'd stumble onto Nazim's shop again.
A questionable basis, sure, but considering some of the methods she'd apparently relied on before meeting him, it was practically scientific by comparison.
She'd apparently spent time wandering around, asking strangers if they'd heard rumors of a mysterious kobold with a mysterious shop that supposedly had absolutely anything you could want tucked away in the back, provided you had something worth trading for it.
To her credit, that method had gotten her within two or three hours of mountains' climb away from finding one. So perhaps it’s unfair to dismiss her approach as he did.
"Continuing to search here is a waste of our time," she conceded, her spirits lifting slightly. "We should put our effort into another city. Or somewhere else entirely."
That sudden resolution left Shiro uncomfortably split down the middle. He knew her well enough by now to know that whatever she'd just decreed, she meant to act on immediately. Whatever was driving her urgency to find Nazim clearly wasn't running on a relaxed timeline.
That was a problem, because while he'd made the best of their five days searching, treating it like a city tour, there was still one specific activity he'd had his heart set on since arriving that he hadn't gotten around to yet.
There was no way in hell he was leaving this city with that box still unchecked. It didn't sit right with him.
Which was why he lit up the moment he remembered. "We can't leave the city yet. Remember the blockade everyone at the Bower's been complaining about? No one’s allowed out."
He'd overheard it from the inn's other guests, day after day, the same complaint repeated with rising bitterness. Apparently, the day after they'd arrived in Eudeussac, the local lords had issued an unpopular order sealing the city.
No merchants, no travelers, nobody allowed in or out. Rumor had it they were hunting some major criminal, which had bought the order a brief window of public sympathy before the actual consequences of the lockdown burned through it entirely.
"Hm?"
"Is it still very much going on right now! We genuinely can't leave, even if we wanted to, not immediately anyway. Though apparently the lords behind it are close to caving. Give it a few more days," he said, buying time he fully intended to use on some unfinished business of his own.
"You look awfully optimistic about this," she said, openly suspicious.
"I mean, I could use this time to figure out who I actually was. That's why I was seeking civilization in the first place, remember?"
The half-lie had a strange effect on her. Clearly she'd forgotten about his little backstory, and honestly, he could hardly blame her, he'd half forgotten about it himself. "It's getting late," he declared, holding out his hand for her to take. "Let's head back to the Bower."
She stared at the offered hand a beat too long, long enough that he started wondering if there was still lingering awkwardness between them from whatever he'd done that inebriated night.
He'd assumed they were past it, but this made him question that.
Ignoring the hand, she got up on her own and started walking.
"Hey, hold—" Shiro called, turning to find her doing something that thoroughly confused him: offering him her hand, the exact gesture he'd just made.
He stared at it. "What?"
"What do you mean, what? I'm offering you my hand."
"You just refused mine, and now you're offering me yours."
"Yes," she said, as if that explained everything. It didn't, which she seemed to sense, since she added, "Because I think I prefer being the one who offers, rather than the one being offered to."
"Erm, that's it?"
"That's it."
He considered objecting, briefly, then decided against it and took her hand. The moment he did, as she led him back toward the Bower, a very specific part of him stiffened. Stiffened.
From handholding!? Seriously.
By now he'd dealt with this particular reaction enough times to know it wasn't a sign of his curse finally lifting, or his body quietly fixing itself. It just happened, randomly, whenever Chaska was close enough.
A more naive version of himself might've taken that as proof he was falling for her.
He didn't think that was the case, and he trusted his own read on it.
She was pretty, no question, he wouldn't insult her by claiming otherwise, but it wasn't that specific, can't-look-away kind of pretty he imagined came with actually being in love with someone.
So whatever was happening here, it clearly wasn't that.
He was still turning the question of what it was, then, over in his head when they passed through an alley that struck him as familiar.
He'd been here before, he realized, a little too late.
Halfway down the passage stood the entrance to Satin & Silk.
A familiar face waited at the doorway, the same madam who had once told him, with no real regret, that no one was available to see him since they'd all been booked by the city’s lord.
Their eyes met, and to his horror, she recognized him just as instantly as he'd recognized her. To her credit, she made a valiant attempt at pretending otherwise. He wished, fervently, she'd committed to that lie a little harder.
"Is your love life feeling dreadfully mundane?
" she called out to no one in particular, her voice building with the practiced momentum of a woman who'd delivered the same pitch hundreds of times.
"Has your partner grown disappointingly predictable?
Has your bed become a place for sleeping and nothing more?
Then welcome to Satin and Silk, Eudeussac's finest indulgence parlor!
"Seeking the cold embrace of a scaled companion?
The nimble fingers of a thieving catgirl?
Or perhaps just a warm mug of ale and someone willing to listen to you ramble about the embargo?
We've got that too! And should your evening get a little too enthusiastic, our healers are never far away.
Fresh linens between every guest, and plenty of them, for at least the first three watches.
"Come in, and let us put a little excitement back into your life!"
Nice pitch, Shiro thought, genuine admiration buried somewhere beneath his rising panic. I was already planning to come back. All you had to do was pretend you didn't know me.
Beside him, Chaska had gone still. She looked from the madam to him and back again. "You know her?"
"No," Shiro denied immediately. He'd met the woman exactly once, in passing. That hardly counted as knowing someone.
Just as Chaska's eyes swung back and forth between them, visibly unconvinced, the madam pressed on, undeterred.
"And we cater to every taste under the sun! Our girls are masters of pampering, whether our guest is a gentleman or a lady. We've got hands of silk that know exactly how to treat a woman right. Why should the boys get to have all the fun?"
Oh, come on, Shiro screamed internally. This is absolutely ridiculous. Why are you advertising to her too—
Mid-spiral, Shiro noticed Chaska was no longer looking at the madam with just suspicion. She was looking at her the way someone looks at a pitch they were, against their own better judgment, genuinely starting to consider.
"Oi, you—"
"You want to check it out."
"That place?" he asked, just to make absolutely sure he wasn't misreading this.
She nodded.
"Just in case you missed it," he said carefully, "that's a brothel. A place where—"
"I know. I'm not deaf. I heard exactly what she was shouting at us." She glanced once more toward the entrance, then back at him. "So. Do you want to go in?"