The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(41)

“How am I supposed to find Emahla if I don’t have witstone?”

As if in answer, Mephi took a deep breath and exhaled a wisp of white smoke.

“Well, that might work in a pinch, but it’s not as good as witstone. You’ll have to find a way to get used to it.” I stopped in my stroll down the street, shaking my head. When had I begun thinking he could understand complex sentences? But I could puzzle out the vagaries of chronology later.

I found Shuay near the docks, just as the fishermen had indicated. Steam rose from her stall, mingling with the low-hanging clouds. Wind rattled the fronds that made her roof. “Two pennies for steamed crab legs,” she said without looking up. She was a thin, older woman, black hair laced with silver streaks.

I paid her for two, because people are always inclined to be kinder once you’ve done business with them. She handed over the crab legs on banana leaves, and I proffered one serving to Mephi.

As soon as he smelled it, his trembling ceased. He seized the crab and began to noisily tear shell from flesh, making little sounds of satisfaction as he found the meat within.

Shuay laughed. “Your friend is hungry.”

“I think he’s always hungry.” I fed him another piece of crab leg. He was making a mess of my shirt, but I couldn’t bring myself to care that much. I’d not changed it since the beating, and there was still some dirt and blood caught in the fibers. “I was told you know a lot about who comes in and out at the docks. I’m looking for someone.”

I didn’t even need to pay her. Shuay leaned forward, her elbows on the counter of her stall. She smiled in an invitation to go on, and something about the way her eyes wrinkled reminded me of my mother. A sensation of vertigo swam over me briefly. It seemed only the other day that I was back at home in her kitchen, sitting next to her on the bench, my hip pressed to hers as I chopped scallions.

How old would she be now? Her hair had been all black when I’d left. Did it have silver in it now like Shuay’s? Had her shard come into use? Was she sick like Alon’s mother? I couldn’t even think it.

I breathed in the smell of steamed crab, trying to reorient myself. “Have you seen a boat come through here? Dark wood with blue sails?”

When she nodded, I thought my throat would close up.

“I didn’t just see the boat,” she said. “Saw the captain of it too, and his companion. They came by on their way out.”

I couldn’t speak.

“Tall fellow, long face, big cloak – does that sound right?”

I nodded and choked out, “And his companion?”

“Young lady. Shorter than he was. Big, dark eyes. Thick brows and a thin face.” Shuay frowned. “Not pretty but striking, I’d say. Lips that turned a little upward at the corners. But she looked scared. Terrified. Didn’t say a word, and neither did he.”

Mephi must have sensed my distress because he dropped the crab leg he’d been working on and began to pat my hair with one paw. I couldn’t rely on a verbal description, but the face she’d spoken about bloomed in my mind. Emahla’s face. No one had ever claimed she was beautiful – except for me. And I’d meant it.

Shuay patted my hand. I was still holding my serving of crab legs, my grip creasing the leaf. “You can sit down if you need to.”

The kindness in her voice almost brought me to tears. I knew deep down that this was another piece of information for her to peddle, to feel important, but I’d done my share of using people for my own satisfaction. I couldn’t fault her.

I tried to keep my voice steady. “Did she have a mark here?” I pressed a finger below my right eye.

Shuay’s expression grew pensive. “Can’t say that she did. Not so much as a freckle.”

All the hope and panic and fear fled, leaving me dark and hollow. Not her. Just someone who looked like her.

“I should go. Thank you.” I handed the rest of the crab to Mephi, my appetite gone. I had things I needed to do.

It took me most of the afternoon to hunt down more witstone, and it took the rest of the afternoon to get Mephi to accept it. Or at least to form some semblance of tolerance. There must have been some smell attached to it, because if I touched it, he shrank from my hands, hissing and spitting, looking more like a pincushion than an animal. I had to run water over my hands before he’d get anywhere close to them, and still he curled his tail around my neck as though he meant to choke me with it.

What choice did I have though? He was an animal I’d plucked from the ocean only days ago. Emahla was the woman I’d pledged my life to. And perhaps Shuay was mistaken. Perhaps the woman she’d seen was Emahla. I had to know for myself. I felt it like a string tied tight around my body, painfully taut, dragging me onward.

I went back to the docks at sundown.

The man who’d paid me to smuggle his daughter was there waiting, a box of supplies at his feet. His right hand rested on the shoulder of a little girl, her hair plaited, her eyes somber. His left hand rested on . . . another child. A boy of the same age. I didn’t need to look at the man’s pleading expression to know what he was going to ask of me.

There should have been a word for this feeling – of surprise, yet not surprise. My mother had scolded me often when I was young: “One foolish choice is like a rat you let go. It will spawn more consequences than you first thought possible.”