The other shoppers melt away as unobtrusively as possible, clocking the Lord of the Towers rolling down the street. A few brief, furtive exchanges follow, gloved hands brushing silk and the barest glimmer of coin. The proprietors adjust their wares and wait patiently. The street quietens to the yowl of cats, the chirping of the bright-plumed birds which fret in their stall-side cages.
Shipwright feels curiosity light in her like it hasn’t for years, but tries to play it cool. ‘How do you even know they’ll have what we need, Declan?’
Fallon taps his nose. ‘I’ve got a woman. She scoped it out. These guys have everything. This is where the weirdness of the city ends up. All the artefacts, the charms, the occult bits and bollocks; it all sifts down to Thriftglow eventually.’
If he notices the stallholders bristle slightly, he says nothing.
He sighs. ‘Just … let someone else handle it, for once, OK? You control freak.’
Shipwright beams at him, smiles wider still at Shroudweaver’s laugh. ‘Fine, fine. You got me. Fine.’ Holds her hands up in surrender.
‘Good,’ Fallon grins. ‘You need to head four doors down, talk to that man there, the one that looks like a snake in a fur wrap.’ He points to a man who watches flatly, eyes lizard-lidded, fingers adjusting a belt hung with thin, sharp tools.
‘They all love me down here.’ He turns. ‘Shroud, come with me, we’re going to see Smokesister.’
Shroudweaver starts. ‘She’s still alive?’
Fallon laughs. ‘I think she’s too mean to die.’ He pulls Shroud in close. ‘Why, do you still have a crush on her?’
40
there are sympathetic tendencies in all things
the bird seeks the cage
the hawk seeks the bird
the sky seeks the hawk.
—Meditations on the Vanished Arts, lecture series
The snake-eyed man waits for her in the half-darkness of his shop. His skin is leaf-thin, the veins blue as ice beneath. His laboured breathing rustles like a stack of dropped papers. He beckons her to a seat as she enters.
His voice is quiet, almost lost in the soft sound of his settling robes.
‘The Shipwright herself. An honour.’ A thin smile, but his eyes are bright above it, like sparks struck in the lamp of his tall skull. A few brief wisps of hair cling to either side of his head.
‘Thank you,’ she replies. ‘That’s not … I mean. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’
He smiles again, like a flipped switch. ‘Wicktwister; the lord keeps me on for my services, my stock.’
He busies himself to the back of the shop where a massive apothecary’s cabinet looms. Its drawers are opened and closed with speed, his head still half-turned to Shipwright as he works.
‘Tell me what you need. Your magic is alien to me, and the lord is …’ his smile flickers. ‘Not magically inclined.’ He brings forth a selection of thin, metal sheets on a small wooden tray and offers it across to her.
‘I find it … I findyoufascinating.’ His fingers linger on the metal, then guide Shipwright’s hands towards it. ‘A whole new magic. So foreign to our shores. Imagine, the things you musthave seen. The things that must seem foreign to you!’ That smile again. ‘What a delight.’
He opens more drawers, brings small, precise tools, tongs and hammers. ‘But I digress. You are a craftsman, as well as a sorcerer. That I know, that I understand better thananyonein this city.’ He leans in close. ‘In this, city, on this earth, if I dare say.’ His breath smells of aniseed, faintly medicinal. He leans back, fans the tools out.
‘Teach me, an ignorant, eager student. Which of these will make your magic sing?’
Shipwright lets her fingers drift over the samples and sighs gently. Alloys of the finest sheen. Metal that bruises like butter, that bends like willow.
‘These are amazing,’ she breathes.
Wicktwister dips his head. ‘Too kind. But not too kind, really. Rarities, the finest of my collection. Worked and layered and smelted, just so.’
He fans out a selection, and she watches the calluses and burns dance on the tips of his fingers.
