Gates of Thread and Stone(4)

I pushed into the shop. What I liked best about the place was that it was clean. While the stock wasn’t the freshest, they at least had the decency to toss out the rotten produce. The counters were wiped down, the floors swept every night, and the windows washed once a week. I knew this because even though Avan claimed he was just helping out his dad, he practically ran the shop and liked to keep it looking tidy.

“Hey, Kai,” Avan called from behind the counter. His cheek dimpled when he smiled.

I waved and ducked into an aisle, feeling like an idiot. He was a year older than me, tall and olive skinned, with dark hair. We’d been friends for long enough that he shouldn’t have affected me anymore, but try telling that to my stomach. As if to mock me, it did a little flip.

I perused the shelves, picking out a package of dried pear slices and a cucumber sandwich. Meat was difficult to come by, but it would have been too expensive for me anyway. Then I told my stomach to settle down and brought my items to the counter.

“How was the illustrious White Court today?” Avan asked as he rang up my items.

He had nice hands, slender but strong, with long fingers. The muscles in his forearm shifted as he moved. I watched a few beats too long and hastily looked away.

“Blinding,” I said. “I’ll have to roll around outside to get rid of the clean feeling.”

Avan smiled again, his dark eyes lingering on my face before he turned to place my purchases in a paper bag. A jagged black tattoo started under his jaw, crawled down the side of his neck, and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. He’d gotten the tattoo a few years ago, around the time I’d begun to think of him as a friend. I tried to imagine what the rest of it looked like.

He reached behind him and then tucked a couple other things inside the bag: a wrapped loaf of bread and a wedge of hard cheese.

“Came in this morning,” he said. “Haven’t put them out on the floor yet.” His voice was deep. When he spoke softly like that, I could almost feel it rumbling inside my chest.

I nodded my thanks. Avan liked to slip me fresh products. That was how it had started—our friendship. I’d always noticed him, of course. Impossible not to. But when I was twelve, he’d slipped me a few apples with a quiet smile. That was the first time he noticed me.

In the beginning, I objected. I wasn’t used to random acts of kindness, and I demanded to know what he wanted. But he never asked for anything and never stopped trying to help. I eventually stopped arguing. Turning down free food would be pretty stupid.

“How’s your brother?” he asked, placing my bag on the counter between us. I was grateful for the barrier, however small.

“Good. How—” I looked away, unable to help glancing at the door in the corner that led up to his parents’ apartment. “How are . . . things?”

Avan saw where I was looking and tensed. He didn’t really talk about his mom anymore, and asking about his dad wasn’t an option, not since I’d kicked him in the groin when I was thirteen. I’d gotten tired of coming in to find Avan at the counter with purple bruises and bandaged hands. So the next time I’d seen Mr. Drivas, soaked in liquor and screaming at him, I’d come up from behind and aimed between the legs.

Avan had tried to shield me as his dad went red with rage. Mr. Drivas hadn’t hit me, though. Even drunk, he knew that Reev would have put him in the hospital.

“My mom’s fine,” Avan said, interpreting my vague question. When he wasn’t smiling, he looked kind of somber. Even sad. I wondered if he knew that. “So have you heard the news?”

“You know you’re my best source.” More like my only source. I didn’t much care what was happening around the city if it didn’t affect me or Reev, but Avan had connections and was usually well-informed.

And I liked the excuse to stick around and talk to him.

“There was another one,” he said. “Upper Alley.”

My fingers fiddled with the bag. Nobody talked much about the disappearances. They happened a few times a year at most—not enough to cause mass panic but certainly often enough to be noticed—and people either reacted with fear and paranoia, or they looked the other way.

With our own survival to worry about, we didn’t have much concern to spare.

“The Black Rider strikes again?” I said with a hefty dose of sarcasm.

Neither of us believed Kahl Ninu’s claim that a rebel named the Black Rider was kidnapping Ninurtans. What kind of self-respecting criminal would call himself the Black Rider? And aside from the propaganda insisting the Rider wanted to overthrow the Kahl, no one had ever seen or heard of him.

Frankly, it sounded like a half-baked cover-up. Probably because the Kahl had yet to catch whoever was actually kidnapping people. Although with magic at his disposal, I would’ve expected it to be an easy task.

“Someone you knew?” I asked.

“Not really. Met her a couple times, but . . .” He shrugged, and that was really all there was to do.

In a couple of weeks or months, once her family accepted she wasn’t going to be found, they would go to the old mahjo temple at the center of the North District and hold a farewell ceremony. And then they would move on with their lives.

“Stay safe.”

He told me those same two words every day, and I gave him the same answer: “Always do.”