Chapter Two
Though the tavern was full, the mood was as subdued as it always was in the callejon.
The people were tired from long days of hard work, and it was important to keep the noise to a minimum to avoid any unwanted attention.
Muki were lured toward the living, and even quiet, there was plenty of life to be had here.
Celeste played the cuatro at a quick tempo, the vibration of the strings echoing around the room and filling the small space with a kind of warmth and joy that was hard to come by.
Solana ate and soaked in as much of it as she could.
Her memories of this place were layered with equal parts pain and pleasure.
Her mother had worked here before she died, and Solana had spent a lot of time nestled at tables in corners, waiting for her shift to end so they could get home before the dusk bells rang.
Mostly, she avoided visiting, even if Jacobi’s pisco helped to dull the pain.
Sami’s shoulder bumped into her. “Everything okay?”
Solana glanced at him in the dull glow of the torchlight.
He was so solid, so alive that it made her chest hurt.
Sami had a beautiful life in Qhilli. A mother and a father and a younger brother who thought that Sami hung the moon and all its stars.
They had a small house by the docks where Sami’s father’s boats were docked.
The men spent their days fishing while Sami’s mother taught the callejon’s smallest children to read and write.
They were happy. So much so that Solana avoided going there, tainting their family with her bad attitude and poor luck. She already felt guilty enough dragging Sami around with her.
“Fine,” she finally responded. “We should get going. Maybe we can finish this job before the sun comes up.”
“We could always finish it tomorrow night.”
Solana shook her head. “I don’t want to lose track of it. The client said he died in a particularly brutal accident. Something about a hand saw and buckets of bl—”
“I get it,” Sami interrupted, hand lifted.
He pushed his bowl across the counter and gestured at a nearby attendant.
Just as he did, the small bell over the door rang.
Solana wouldn’t have thought anything of it—another fool in the callejon come to drown his sorrows in pisco—but a hush fell over the tavern that sent chills down her spine.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw two men in long, dark cloaks heading toward an empty table in the corner closest to them.
Noise resumed as the men sat and an attendant greeted them with a smile. They ordered whatever the house serves best, and then the attendant disappeared into the kitchens behind the bar.
“—and then we’ll go, all right?” Sami was saying.
Solana hummed, but her attention was on the men behind them.
Their cloaks, one a deep green and the other a gray so dark it was almost black, were of a finer make and quality than what anyone in the callejon wore, and their boots had a shine to them that told her they didn’t often walk these streets.
It was possible that they were from the part of Qhilli that butted right up to Iques, where the neighborhoods were cleaner and safer, but those people tended to stay closer to the inner city, as if they could convince others they belonged to it. As if proximity alone was enough to stake a claim.
But no, these men glanced around the room like they were looking for something. The one in the gray cloak, his eyes a bright blue that contrasted nicely against his tan skin, caught Solana’s eye and winked. She smiled demurely and turned back to the bar.
Jacobi came over and started speaking to Sami about a delivery of fish, but Solana leaned in her chair and closed her eyes. If she focused, she could pick up the men’s murmured conversation. Their accents were sharper than those of the people of Qhilli, all jagged edges and hammered words.
“Thirty thousand ilyas is a steep price to pay for an adventure,” one of the men said. Solana turned her head to the side, giving them her good ear.
Someone chuckled, and then the same voice said, “Yes, I suppose there is always more where it came from.” They spoke of money so flippantly, as if that sum couldn’t support an entire family for years and years. “And Medallions are notoriously difficult to come by.”
Solana froze in her seat. A Medallion. The one thing that would get her off Supay and away from bad memories and responsibilities.
She turned further, just enough to catch sight of the Medallion they were passing between them without care or consideration.
Flaunting it, as if unafraid of thieves or unbothered by the prospect of being robbed.
Solana closed her gaping mouth and whirled back to the bar.
This was the closest she had ever come to the elusive coin.
Part of her had wondered if it was a myth, a tool used to give them all hope, the promise of escape dangled like bait.
At last check, even at the rates she charged—minus the number of times she had accepted payment that wasn’t money—it would be another twenty years before she could afford one.
And that was assuming the prices didn’t rise again.
Like the man had said, this was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to let pass her by.
“Jacobi,” she called. Once he was closer, she leaned onto her elbows and lowered her voice.
“Can I send two piscos to that table there?” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder.
Sami turned mid-bite to follow her gesture.
A dollop of stew fell onto the bar top, and Jacobi wiped it up before Sami noticed.
He was too busy staring at the side of her face.
Without looking, Solana knew there was hurt lining the creases of his eyes and mouth.
She ignored it. It wasn’t her fault he refused to accept who she was.
An opportunist. A broken, lonely thing unable and unwilling to be fixed.
She saw it in Jacobi’s eyes, too, the disappointment, the concern over her choosing to indulge in the bad habit of seducing and thieving.
There was only the one time it had gone sour, and they would never let her forget it.
The man had gone to bed with her entirely willingly.
It was his own fault for having poor judgment of character.
Sami’s and Jacobi’s judgment of her character stung, but Solana wasn’t in the mood to change their minds. Not when she was closer than ever to a way out.
With a sigh, Jacobi turned to the barrels protruding from the wall and poured two squat glasses of pisco.
The amber liquid sloshed as he slid it across the bar and into the attendant’s hands.
“For the gentlemen over there,” Jacobi told the woman, who nodded and delivered the drinks with the same smile she gave every other patron.
The two men took them without question and cheered before they threw them back. Solana grinned viciously. “Keep them coming, Jacobi.”
An hour later, with a belly full of stew and tea, she knew both of their names: Nikolas, the one with blue eyes and lightly tanned skin and a sharp nose, and Oskar in the deep green cloak, with black eyes that glittered in the firelight and burnished-gold skin.
Oskar spoke with his hands, and Nikolas had a bad habit of repeating everything out loud.
They were from Sonqo, bored with their stuffy lives and looking for adventure. Oskar’s grandfather was on his deathbed and sold the coin to him. Why an old man wanted thirty thousand ilyas before he died, Solana didn’t understand, but she was more than willing to use his greed for her good.
Nikolas and Oskar were very relaxed by the time they stumbled to their feet and left the bar, and she was very eager to learn what other treasures their deep pockets held.
Solana stood, ready to follow them wherever they went. A warm hand encircled her wrist. “You can’t,” Sami said, his brown eyes pinned to hers, the weight of his loyalty too heavy to hold.
Like a coward, she looked away, even as she left her arm in his hand.
“Can’t what, Sami? What is it you think I’m going to do?
” The men slid through the front door and into the night.
She wasn’t worried about losing them—she knew the streets of the callejon better than anyone—but she didn’t want to risk a muki finding them first.
“What you always do,” Sami said, his fingers pressed against the pulse of her wrist. “Make terrible choices that put you and everyone around you in danger.”
Solana reared back. His hand fell away with a brush of calloused fingertips.
He wasn’t wrong, but the words stung more than she cared to admit.
“I don’t have time for this,” she said, turning on a heel and stomping toward the door.
The scrape of Sami’s stool as he shot to his feet was loud enough that it drew the attention of several patrons.
“Somehow, you don’t have time for anything except hunting,” he yelled after her. Solana avoided eye contact with nosy neighbors and pushed through the door. The heat of Sami’s body followed closely behind. “What is it that you do all day? Who or what is worthy of your time, since it sure isn’t me?”
“That,” Solana said through gritted teeth, “is none of your business.” Not because it was a secret, but because she was ashamed to admit that there was nothing else in her life besides hunting and Sami.
She had stopped excessively drinking after that last attempt at seducing and thieving, and sleeping was out of the question most days.
Nightmares always pushed her out of bed and into the scorching daylight, to a rooftop where the unobstructed view of the sun and sea burned her visions away.
“Nothing is my business, right? No matter that I risk my life with you every single night—”
“I never asked you to do that,” Solana threw over her shoulder.