The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(39)

I hadn’t meant to pull that hard. Had I? I flexed my fingers when I released him. Huh. No more pain. But I couldn’t check my bruises right now.

“The boy,” he said, his eyes darting about the marketplace. He lifted his hands, his fingers curling as though he wasn’t sure if he should form fists. “Please don’t lie. I had to pay for this information. I had to pay a lot of people. I’ve been watching for you.”

Alon. The boy Danila had bade me save from the Tithing Festival. The rise of apprehension in me was like a tide; I didn’t notice it until I was already wet.

He licked his lips, and I saw sweat beading there. “I have something to ask of you. I have a daughter.”

“No.” When I’d flippantly dismissed the thought of who Alon’s parents might tell, I’d been thinking of the Empire, not other desperate parents. My mistake. I cast my eyes about the marketplace too. How many people had heard my name? I shouldered past the man, trying to find emptier streets.

Mephi shifted on my shoulder, his paws digging into my skin. He made a soft, indignant sound in my ear.

“This is what’s not good,” I said to him. “I get threatened into freeing one boy from the Tithing, and now everyone wants a turn at it.” I turned into an empty alley, refuse pooled in the center of it. Footsteps sounded behind me.

“Wait, please. I’ll pay you.”

If I were a dog, my ears would have pricked. I had too little money and too little time to catch the blue-sailed boat. And besides that, the Ioph Carn were on my heels. My purse had a healthy weight to it, but my circumstances called for it to be plump. I pivoted so quickly that the man nearly ran into me. “I’m in a hurry.”

Mephi curled his tail about my throat and took a step down my arm toward the man, a trill in his throat. The man eyed my shoulder warily. “It wouldn’t take much time. I know someone on another island.”

I waited for him to elaborate. He wrang his hands like his fingers were a washcloth. I sighed. “Everyone knows someone on another island.”

“A friend,” he said quickly. “Someone who is part of the Shardless Few. On Unta.”

I had no love for the Emperor, but I wasn’t keen on the Shardless either. Still, if taking this job could get me closer to Emahla, I needed to chance it. And Unta was on my way and close; only two days’ worth of travel. “And you want me to do what? Out with it.”

“Take my daughter with you. Smuggle her off this island and take her to my friend. She’ll take care of her. I’ll pay you to do it.”

“The Shardless Few are a bunch of fanatics who are always sticking their necks out so the Empire has an easier time of lopping of their heads. You’d be better off trying to get her to a monastery. She’d be protected from the Empire behind their walls.”

He looked affronted. “I’d never see her again. And what if she doesn’t want to be a monk?”

I sighed. “Fifty silver phoenixes.”

“Done.”

I blinked. He didn’t look destitute, not with that belly, but his clothes were still simple. A humble man? I’d misjudged before. I should have asked him for more to begin with. Fifty would get me what I needed though. “This will take a little time,” I said. “And don’t expect me to dig into my own stores to feed your girl. I’ll need you to pick up food, blankets, water.”

“Forged documents?”

So he’d been expecting to pay for those too? I had asked for too little. “No. No need.”

“But how will you get past the trade construct?”

I gave a little flourish with one hand, in considerably better spirits than I’d been just a moment before. “I’ll tell it a story. A beautiful, elaborate lie, if you will.” I turned the flourish into an outstretched palm. “Half the money now, if you please.”

He gave me a dubious look.

“There’s a reason the Empire put a price on my head. I’ll do what you’ve asked, and I’ll do it well. Do you think they’d spend the money to keep putting out posters of some half-witted smuggler fresh off his mother’s breast?”

He counted the money out after that.

“Bring her to the docks at sundown, but don’t approach the boats. I’ll meet you on land.” I stowed the money in my purse and left the alley, pleased with myself.

Mephi evidently was pleased as well. “Good,” his creaky voice said in my ear. He rubbed a furry cheek against me.

That was interesting. Did he understand the meaning of what he was saying? There were legends of very old sea serpents that had learned our human tongue, and more stories still of magical creatures living in the depths of the Endless Sea – but those were stories. This was a kitten of a creature, and I could almost cup him in my hands if he curled into a ball.

“No,” I said. If he knew what he was saying, I’d teach him right. “The money is good. The task? Not good.”

“Good,” Mephi insisted again.

I sighed. What was the point? Did I really want a creature on my boat who could talk back to me? Despite the thought, I smiled and reached up to scratch Mephi’s head. He chirruped and sank onto my shoulder, his fur tickling my neck. “We should feed you. And I need more information.”

The city wasn’t a bad size, and I soon found I had two drinking halls to choose from. I chose the one nearest to the docks. The smell of fish mingled with the scent of old smoke as I stepped inside. One breath and a pang of homesickness swept over me. My father regularly met his Poyer friends in a place like this. Onyu and I would sometimes wander inside when we knew my father was done with his fishing, sneaking past the veil of pipe smoke to watch them play a game of cards. If we were lucky, my father would let us play a hand. “Your mother won’t like that I’m teaching you two to gamble,” he’d say. Half the time that was the end of it, and half the time, if we waited, he would grumble a little and pull out a chair for us to share. The lacquered cards were written in Poyer, and I made sheepish, half-hearted attempts to learn it. Each mistake I made seemed to highlight the sallow color of my skin, my loose curls, my gangly limbs. Onyu’s pronunciation was always better, though I knew enough to understand when my father’s friends smiled at my brother and said, “Ah, he speaks like he was born to it!”