“Great.” Marin cringed. “You’ve been very helpful. Can’t wait to try them out.” She looked up at me and muttered, “You’re going first.”
“We’ll flip for it.”
A faint blush stained her cheeks. “This time, I’m calling tails.”
“Cheater.” I hooked my arm over her shoulder and wheeled her away from the merchant’s stall. “Let’s go, gambler. This thief needs to buy a sword.”
“Can I get one?”
“Can you lift one?”
She hummed thoughtfully in the back of her throat. “Probably.”
“We’ll get you some darts.”
The hum turned into a snort. “That’s practical. I can launch them at you from a distance.”
“You’d have to hit me first.”
“A target your size? With my eyes closed.”
I missed this. Three years was a lifetime without her barbs. Verbal darts were her specialty. And I’d take a thousand of them to never hear that empty silence again.
The crowds thinned as we wound through the narrow rock tunnels toward the weapons vendors. Lanterns glowed like floating buoys welded into the stone, and the air grew colder, sharpening with a metallic taste.
Something flickered in the fog.
A hooded figure, head low, cut straight for Marin. I moved,drawing her across my body and steering her in front of me, slotting myself between her and the man’s path. He clipped my shoulder in passing, rough enough to make a point. I met his gaze, cold and steady beneath his hood, before he melted back into the fog.
We kept walking.
Marin chuckled under her breath. “Are you worried I’ll get my pockets picked? You’re the one with the most to lose.”
“I know.” I pulled her tighter against my side, my eyes still scanning the shadows.
“So serious,” she said, nudging me lightly in the ribs. “I wasn’t always part of a crew. I’ve handled my share of unsavory men.”
I made a discontented noise in the back of my throat. “Sure, you have.”
“Don’t sound sarcastic. Remember that time I ran into you at the Druid’s temple? I’d just given a creeper the slip and made off with the vase he tried to steal from me.”
“Yup. I remember that vase. Worth a tidy sum.”
But that creeper had “accidentally” taken a wrong turn and landed face-down in a sand pit, courtesy of my boot.
“And when I left you and that motely crew of scoundrels standing on the dock while I caught the last barge, who got away with the jeweled scepter?”
“You did.”
And I’d traded a relic to have the captain take off the second her boots hit the deck, stranding me with a seething group of hunters until the next one arrived.
For three days.
Marin looked up at me, smug. “See? I'm practically a legend. You could learn a thing or two.”
“You're a tough act to follow, Mare. But somehow, I always do.”
The tunnel opened into a wing of new stalls, some empty and abandoned, others loaded with gear and the faint gleam of weapons.
